by Unknown
‘I hate it – nasty piece of neo-classical junk,’ she told Ellen, in her wonderfully deep, euphonious voice, still looking at the ‘temple’. ‘Looks like a park bandstand or a bus shelter, doesn’t it? I can’t believe there’s such a fuss going on about saving it.’
‘What, actually, is it?’ Ellen asked.
The wide, sunburned nose and cheeks tilted towards her, topped by mesmerising big green eyes. ‘Well, it’s known as the River Folly and the villagers would have you believe some romantic clap-trap about William Constantine building it as a love token for his wife in the eighteenth century, but . . . Ophelia Gently, by the way – call me Pheely.’ She thrust out her hand.
‘I’m Ellen.’ She shook it, rather taken aback by the introduction, made as suddenly as a sneeze and a ‘bless you’ in the middle of the story.
‘I happen to know,’ Pheely carried on, huge eyes sparkling with mischief, ‘that one of the Constantines – a Victorian, so much later – suffered from terrible constipation. He grew terribly bored of sitting for hours on the manor bog and decided to build a loo with a view. But the poor chap was killed in the Boer War before he ever got a chance to use it. Ironic that half the village youth have used it to piss in over the years.’
Ellen stared at the ‘temple’ and secretly agreed that it was a bit of an elaborate eyesore compared to the rough-hewn simplicity of the track, wild hedges and hills. But she didn’t believe a word of Pheely’s story.
‘Oh, God! Hamlet’s raping your dog. Hang on!’
Ellen turned to watch in alarm as Pheely kicked off her flip-flops and rushed down the bank to wade into the river and separate a huge harlequin Great Dane from a very flirtatious Snorkel. With her white smock soaking up water, and the dark curls now full of snowy blossom from brushing past the hawthorns on the bank, Ophelia Gently had been instantly transformed from Greek princess to her Shakespearean namesake.
‘Has she been spayed?’ she shouted, as the Great Dane twisted this way and that, refusing to leave his new girlfriend alone.
‘Yes!’ It was clearly Ellen’s day to discuss her animals’ reproductive systems, she thought, as she waited on the bank beside the gold flip-flops.
‘In that case, I’ll leave them to it.’ Pheely waded out, smiling widely. ‘Sorry – Hamlet’s totally debauched, but harmless. You walking up the path? Shall we trundle together and hope the lovers follow suit?’
She displayed such a disarming friendliness that Ellen found herself liking her immediately. As they fell into step, she realised suddenly that Pheely had set out for a dog walk in the white shift and gold flip-flops. Eccentric and impractical only began to describe it, although on closer inspection the smock looked as though it had been far from pristine before she had taken her dunk. Where the fabric was still dry above the waist, it was covered in muddy red smears and was frayed at the neck. Yet Pheely herself wasn’t as old, dishevelled or plump as Ellen had at first, unkindly, thought. Glancing across as they headed up the hill, she knocked ten years off the forty-something she’d originally taken her to be, and the flapping dress showed that between Pheely’s buxom curves there was a near-Edwardian tiny waist.
‘So you’ve bought Goose Cottage from the dreaded Jamiesons, I gather?’ Pheely was shaking the drips and reeds from her dress, which was also coated with brown, soggy blossom picked up from the river.
‘No.’ She rolled her tongue beneath her bottom lip in amusement. ‘I am a dreaded Jamieson. I’m their daughter.’
‘Oops.’ Pheely didn’t seem remotely embarrassed and let out a throaty giggle that gurgled like the river. ‘I thought I’d have heard about it if it had been sold, but Gladys has been telling everyone you moved in today.’
‘Gladys?’
‘You met her in the shop.’
‘I only met an American called Joel.’
‘GI Joel – he’s a hoot.’ Pheely pulled back her curtain of corkscrews and fixed Ellen with huge, thickly lashed eyes of the same pale green as copper verdigris. ‘Was Lily with him?’
‘Is that his wife?’ Ellen remembered him telling the silent Goth girl that he and Lily had watched the movie together.
‘Absolute weirdo, my dear,’ Pheely whispered indulgently. ‘You wait. Anyway, Gladys is about seventy and looks like a Cabbage Patch doll. Unmistakable.’
‘The elderly lady?’ Ellen raised her eyebrows. ‘She only saw me for a nanosecond before leaving.’
‘That’s all Glad Tidings needs to assess your entire personal history.’ Pheely tapped her nose. She was already panting as they started climbing up the cart track, her bare feet following the soft, grassy ridge in the centre because she’d left her flip-flops behind. ‘She can tell your age, nationality, political persuasion, marital status, guilty secrets and likelihood to help out at the village fête from a two-second encounter at the bus stop. And she has eyes everywhere. She should work for the police.’
Ellen laughed. ‘And what did she say about me?’
‘Spotted moving into Goose Cottage at one with various animals. Spotted loitering in village shop at two thirty with just one animal in tow. Trying to get rid of all animals, it seems. The spotted-walking-with-Touchy-Feely-at-six bulletin is no doubt doing the rounds now, between frantic preparations for tonight’s jamboree. And you are, I quote, “Not a natural blonde and one of them punky sorts with an earring through her belly button. She’s a bit of a spiky madam – probably unmarried, poor thing.”’
‘Nosy old bitch,’ Ellen said, without thinking.
Pheely snorted delightedly, then turned back to shout for Hamlet. ‘Believe me, she’s not as nosy or bitchy as I am. She’s got a very sweet heart.’ She carried on walking backwards beside Ellen. ‘And she means – HAMLET! – well. Lord knows, we’d all need some entertainment after fifty years’ working for the Bellings, and the Constantines before them.’
‘That’s the River Folly man, right?’
‘His descendants, yes – HAMLET! – the lords of Oddlode Manor. Or so Hell’s Bells – that’s Isabel – would have you believe, but she was the first Constantine to bag a title. She’s only Lady Belling now because – HAMLET! – St John got the ultimate gong when Her Maj tapped the chips on both his round shoulders with her sword. Sir St John! You can’t imagine the trouble the locals have getting their tongues around that. Most call him the Surgeon.’
It was no wonder Pheely was so breathless, the rate at which that hypnotising voice divulged information.
‘St John Belling the politician?’ Ellen had recognised the name.
‘The very same, HAMLET YOU GREAT OAF!’ Having veered all over the bridlepath while walking backwards, Pheely decided to walk the right way round again.
‘He’s the one everyone says should have been PM, isn’t he?’
‘The nearly-man, yes. And so he would have been, were it not for that Godforsaken son of his,’ Pheely muttered, with surprising bitterness. Then she laughed. ‘Actually, I have very few things to thank Jasper Belling for, but perhaps that is one of them. The Surgeon would have taken this country back to the dark ages. When Jasper fucked up this village, he did the nation a favour. Such a noble gesture!’
Ellen was vaguely familiar with the story of St John Belling, long-tipped to succeed Thatcher and much admired by her mother. The owner of Oddlode Manor, one-time local Tory MP and a favourite cabinet minister of the Iron Lady with the soft spot for blue-eyed men, had fallen from grace when his son turned out to be a drug-smuggler or something like that. And that son was clearly Jasper Belling. But the rest of Pheely’s chatter was already flying over her head.
‘I might even force myself to go along tonight after all,’ she was saying, pulling long grasses from the banks to wave around like a fairy wand. ‘Glad Tidings was very miffed when I told her I wanted to withdraw my promise – she insisted that I couldn’t do it without Lady B’s permission. Can you imagine? That’s when she told me all about you, no doubt trying to take my mind off the subject, which it did. I am such a butterfly
.’
With her butterfly mind dancing from topic to topic, Pheely had a tendency to talk about people and things as though Ellen should know the subjects intimately. She was about to ask what was happening tonight but at that moment both dogs thundered up the path behind them, a golden flip-flop in each of their mouths.
‘Oh, clever, clever darlings! What clever dogs! I do like your collie.’ She collected the flip-flops, gracefully offered by Snorkel and wrestled from a reluctant Hamlet. ‘Why do you want to get rid of her?’
‘She’s my ex-boyfriend’s dog. He’s moved to Australia. And I’m going abroad myself after the cottage here is sold.’
‘Oh.’ Curiously Pheely didn’t ask any questions about this. For a woman who proclaimed herself ‘nosy’ and ‘bitchy’, she went rather shy. Now panting hard from trying to keep up with Ellen’s brisk walking pace, she batted away midges, big green eyes downcast. ‘Are your parents well?’
‘Yes, fine.’ Ellen stooped to throw a stick for Snorkel. Beside Hamlet’s great stature, she looked minuscule, like a toy dog. ‘Dad’s heart is always a worry, but he seems to have found a life that suits him. And Mum’s really taken to Spain. I didn’t think she would, but she loves it there.’
‘Giving them all hell about proposed green-belt developments and bypasses, no doubt.’ Pheely winked.
‘I think she’s more worried about Dad’s heart bypass these days,’ Ellen said, more abruptly than she intended. She always got snappy when talking about her mother, and was irritated with herself that she couldn’t loosen up and take her less seriously. But some sense of daughterly duty prevailed.
Pheely clearly misread it as a loving defence of a great mother and apologised profusely. ‘Sorry. I really don’t mean it. I said I was a bitch, didn’t I? Your mother and I never really hit it off, I’m afraid. No doubt she thought me a terrible slattern and a terrible mother, which I am. That’s why I tried to get out of tonight’s promise thing – Dilly’s doing “A” levels and I really must be there for her.’
‘You have a daughter doing “A” levels?’ Ellen stopped in her tracks and gaped. She’d been knocking years off her estimate of Pheely’s age all the way up the path – she was monumentally unfit, true, but that and the deep voice, which spoke in a curiously old-fashioned manner, were definitely misleading. Her face was fresh and girlish, with its huge baby eyes and lack of crow’s feet – after so many summers spent in sun and salt water, Ellen’s own skin was far more haggard. And the amazing, gravity-defying body hinted at someone who had yet to find her metabolism working against her. Ellen now put Pheely at about her own age or even younger.
‘Yes, Daffodil.’ Pheely halted too, with obvious relief, and continued breathlessly. ‘Poor darling – I know I can’t resist giving people nicknames, but perhaps it was a bit cruel wishing one on my own daughter. Imagine going through boarding-school being called Dilly Gently. Awful. But, of course, I was younger than she is now when I had her, so I can’t really blame myself any more. And I must say she’s always been terribly good about it. Gosh – look at the village from here! It could almost be picturesque.’
‘It is picturesque,’ said Ellen, aware that Pheely was changing the subject deliberately. She was starting to get the hang of the topic-hopping. Pheely, vivacious, indiscreet and a babbler, gave information in great dollops, then seized up, like a faulty ice-cream machine. It made her both delicious and irritating.
‘It’s a seething pit of lies and hatred,’ Pheely announced, with only a hint of self-mockery. ‘But, yes, maybe it’s quite picturesque from here. One forgets when one’s lived here so long. All my bloody life, in fact. You never lived here with your parents, did you?’
Ellen shook her head, distractedly doing some mental arithmetic to satisfy her own curiosity. Maths had always been a natural gift – much to her mother’s delight and her own embarrassment – and she had never been able to stop herself adding things up. She now calculated that if a daughter taking ‘A’ levels was older than her mother had been at her birth, Pheely couldn’t be more than thirty-three tops. It rocked her back on her heels to discover that someone so close to her own age could have a grown-up daughter.
‘Lucky you,’ Pheely was saying, throwing the stick that Snorkel had dropped at their feet, which Ellen had been too distracted to notice. ‘It was Somerset your parents moved here from, wasn’t it?’
‘Near Taunton, yes.’
‘I thought I recognised that lovely accent. Did you stay on there after they’d left?’
Ellen, who wasn’t aware that she had an accent and had suffered hours of elocution lessons at her parents’ expense because Jennifer had said once that ‘sounding like a peasant’ would hamper her chances of getting into medical school, found herself deeply self-conscious. She cleared her throat, and said, in a voice of which Henry Higgins would have been proud, ‘I’ve been mostly based in Cornwall, but I’ve worked all over the road – I mean, the place. Here and overseas.’
Too busy stick-throwing to notice the enunciated voice, Pheely sighed indulgently. ‘Oh, lucky you. What is it that you do?’
‘Sports physiotherapist.’
‘Wow.’ Pheely pulled in her stomach and glanced across at her. ‘No wonder you’re so gorgeously trim and fit.’
Ellen ducked her head, biting back the comment that she’d piled on weight lately – which she had, misery-eating over Richard. She knew it wasn’t the thing to say in front of somebody as curvaceous – however stunningly so – as Pheely.
‘Are you working while you’re here?’ she was asking now.
‘No, I’m having a break. I’ve always worked like mad through the winter – out-of-season training, foreign tours, winter sports, that sort of thing. That way, I can have free summers. Me and Rich—’ She stopped herself and tried again. ‘I like to surf.’
‘Sounds lovely. Makes my life seem very dull,’ Pheely seemed wildly envious of any life outside Oddlode. Her butterfly mind, it appeared, was trapped against a window, battering to get out.
Ellen was about to ask her what she did when Pheely clasped her hands to her mouth and let out an excited shriek. ‘How perfect! Does being a sports physiotherapist involve giving massages by any chance?’
‘It’s an important part of the job.’
‘Then you can come with me tonight. Yippee!’ Pheely was hopping around excitedly, green eyes jubilant. ‘You are free, aren’t you?’
‘Er – sort of. What’s happening?’
‘Hell’s Bells has organised an auction of promises at the manor,’ Pheely told her. ‘Oh, please say you’ll come – please! My friend Pixie can’t come now, the bitch, and I hate the idea of going alone, especially with Jasper there, although I’m dying to have a gawp. You can hold my hand and we can gawp together.’
For a thirty-something woman with a voice like a jazz singer and a grown daughter, Pheely could be absurdly childlike, Ellen realised – a spoilt little posh girl who had friends called Pixie and hated going to parties alone. She should be maddening, yet something about her bitchy, witty, frustrated joyfulness was intoxicating. She radiated warm-hearted abandon and instant friendship. Such ingenuous trust was something Ellen had almost forgotten.
‘What does it involve?’ she asked cautiously, proving her point. She’d become too slow-moving lately, no longer embracing the unknown with the impulsive recklessness that she and Richard had shared for so long, marking them apart from others. She missed it like mad. ‘No! Forget that question.’ She stopped Pheely before she could open her mouth to answer. ‘Where shall we meet and what do I wear?’
‘Oh, my darling!’ Pheely let out a little whoop and clapped her hands, her smile as wide and sunny as the view. ‘You are such a welcome addition to the village! Wear anything you like. God knows, looking as sexy as you do in builder’s shorts and an inside out T, you could wear a bin-bag and overexcite the locals – although, knowing Hell’s Bells, I’d say maybe wear more. Not because she’s a tartar for formality, which she is, but
because the manor is always freezing, even at this time of year. And come round to mine for a bottle of plonk first so that I can fill you in – Gladys mentioned something about a wine crisis, so we must make sure we’ve snuffled some back beforehand.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘In fact – Christ! We must head back and get tarted up straight away.’
Despite having laboured all the way up the hill, Pheely had no such trouble dancing down it again. They were passing the folly and crossing the bridge before Ellen had time to catch her breath, the dogs in hot pursuit.
At the lime tree where the tracks and lanes met, Pheely clasped Ellen’s hands, her face pink from running. ‘Give me twenty minutes to change, then meet me back here.’
‘Can’t I just call at your house?’ Ellen felt a sudden twinge of panic at agreeing to go to a mysterious village event with a stranger, and to share a bottle of wine beforehand. She didn’t even know where Pheely lived.
‘It’s a bit hard to find the way in,’ Pheely said cryptically. ‘Much quicker to meet me here. I’ll phone Gladys straight away and let her know you’re adding a last-minute lot – in fact, Hell’s Bells must be back by now so I’ll tell her. That’ll get the old bag going. Hurry back!’
‘A last-minute what?’ Ellen called, but Pheely was already dancing away through the evening sun in the direction of the magical arched gateway in the high garden wall, behind which lay the secrets of the beautiful, decaying Lodge. A moment later she had pulled it open, letting an amazing green dappled light spill out as the sun, sinking to the west, poured golden rays through the bottle green leaves of the overgrown garden. It streamed through Pheely’s white smock like the beam from the transporter room in the Starship Enterprise, silhouetting that astounding, voluptuous hourglass body through the thin fabric before Pheely disappeared through the gate followed by Hamlet, himself dyed green in the light – half dog, half Incredible Hulk.
Ellen smiled to herself. She might have guessed. Ophelia Gently lived in the magical-mystery lodge, in her magical-mystery world of giant dogs, evil villagers and Pixie friends. She wasn’t real. She couldn’t be real.