Good Husband Material

by Trisha Ashley

  A painting!

  Of course, I didn’t stop to look at it until I was back in the anonymity of the crowd. It was in oils and depicted a seaside scene, probably Cornwall (aren’t they all?), and it wasn’t bad, either. On the back was a label: ‘By Claude Sturgeon: Foot Painter.’

  And then it went on about there being a whole group of disabled artists who paint with their feet, and I was a bit more impressed with it after that, because I couldn’t have painted it with my hands, let alone anything else.

  What a feat!

  Sorry.

  Mrs Deakin materialised at my side like a small flowered Dalek and admired it so greatly I almost gave it to her, but then decided that the first thing I’d ever won should really stay in the family, and Mother would love it.

  Mrs Deakin said she’d closed the shop in order to attend the last half-hour of the fête, but she intended staying open extra late this evening to make up. ‘And those are my knitted scarves and gloves over there,’ she pointedly remarked, having observed my lack of trophies (other than the picture).

  ‘Really? They seem to be selling very well.’ Especially to the colour blind. I began to edge away: ‘Is that the time? I really must go and—’

  But her eyes, fixed on something over my left shoulder, glazed over and the small predatory claw that she had laid on my arm tightened.

  There was a strange prickling sensation down my spine. I turned slowly and with a sense of the inevitability of my doom watched a tall, dark and unwelcome figure stride determinedly through the crowd in my direction, like Moses parting the Red Sea.

  His presence there was so surreal I thought for a minute I was having one of my peculiar dreams, and he would snatch me up in his arms at any minute and do unspeakably pleasurable things …

  Shame on me!

  Then I remembered that we’d done the unspeakably pleasurable things, and some instinct for self-preservation made me try to turn and flee, my heart flopping about like a dying fish and my face burning, before all the blood literally drained out of it. (Into my feet, I think, which is why I didn’t get very far before Mrs D. brought me up like my own personal anchor.)

  His greeting was not that of one softened by the recollection of a tender moment – or even a hot, sweaty couple of hours.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he snarled, coming to a stop so close that I had to tip my head back to look at him.

  Blue lights sparked in his long black hair, his skin was tanned an even dark olive against the soft white of his shirt, and his glacial green eyes froze me to the spot.

  Anger loosened my tongue. ‘How nice to see you too, Fergal!’

  Becoming aware for the first time of the small, chestnut-haired girl clutching his arm and panting from the exertion of being towed along, I added politely, ‘Hi!’

  Then I took a second look: she was the girl in the airport photograph, the one he was embracing not an hour after he left me.

  Her pansy-brown eyes stared inimically back: no one seemed pleased to see me, except possibly the vicar, beaming away on Fergal’s other side.

  To say we were the centre of all eyes was an understatement. Mrs Deakin’s faculties were set to Maximum Receptivity Point, and I’d never known her silent for so long.

  Fergal looked down his long nose at me. ‘I didn’t expect to find you here!’

  I tried a cool smile, since I couldn’t think why he was looking so angry about it. He certainly couldn’t want a snake in his Eden any less than I did. ‘Why should you? And I could say the same about you: this is hardly your sort of thing, is it?’

  ‘You know each other?’ the vicar said, with an air of doubtful discovery.

  ‘We certainly did – once.’ The green eyes scanned me thoughtfully from head to foot. ‘You’ve changed a lot, Angel.’

  Clearly this was not meant as a compliment, despite my old pet name.

  ‘Older and wiser,’ I said sweetly.

  ‘Vicar,’ Mrs Deakin broke in, unable to contain her curiosity a moment longer. ‘Who? What?’

  The vicar took pity on her. ‘This is Fergal Rocco, Mrs Deakin, who, I’m reliably informed, is a rock star of note!’

  He waited for polite laughter at his little pun, which Mrs D. supplied solo, before adding with éclat: ‘And the new owner of Greatness Hall!’

  ‘Some inherit Greatness,’ my mouth said, going it solo as usual, ‘and some have Greatness thrust upon them!’ Then I took a hasty step backwards, because I thought Fergal was about to commit violence on my person. Age doesn’t seem to have mellowed him.

  ‘Say, who is this?’ drawled the girl, still clinging to his arm like a furled bat (only the right way up) and giving me the Evil Eye. ‘An old flame, Fergal honey?’ she added dispara-gingly: ‘An old, old flame!’

  Cow.

  Fergal ignored her. ‘What are you doing here, Tish?’ he said more moderately.

  ‘I live in Nutthill.’ (And of all the villages in all the world, you had to choose this one!)

  ‘Really?’ He sounded less than delighted at the prospect. ‘Coincidences never cease, do they? I’m just moving in. Did I introduce Nerissa? Never mind, I don’t suppose you’ll ever meet again.’

  Nerissa was pouting, and the vicar had the uncertain look of a puppy who doesn’t know if he’s done the right thing or not. Fergal began to turn away. ‘Nice to have met you again, Tish … Mrs …’

  ‘Deakin,’ she supplied eagerly. ‘Of Nutthill Home Stores. Anything you want, you come to me. No need to go to they nasty supermarkets!’

  For a moment I thought his face might crack open into a grin, but no. ‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ he said gravely, and began to walk off.

  With one mighty bound my mouth was free. ‘Oh, Fergal!’

  He paused and scowled back at me over his shoulder.

  ‘There’s a letter in the post to you – well, to the new owner of the Hall, I didn’t know it was you – about the fence dividing your park from my garden. You’re responsible for it and the cows are trying to break through. Do you think you can have someone fix it?’

  ‘Fergal, honey, will you buy me one of these cute little teddy bears?’ Nerissa broke in rudely, batting her dark eyelashes at him. ‘The fête is going to close soon, and we haven’t seen anything yet.’

  ‘I’ll attend to it!’ Fergal Honey snapped in my direction, and strode off with Nerissa still clamped to his side.

  The Human Poultice strikes again.

  She’s definitely the girl from the airport. The future Mrs Rocco? She looks as if she intends to be, and that soft accent, big brown eyes and iron will might just do it. OK – and the marvellous figure and pretty face. And she can’t be more than twenty, if that.

  He must have been desperate to make do with me that night. Any port in a storm, I suppose. Or perhaps he was drunk too?

  How on earth am I going to cope with having him living in Nutthill?

  I avoided Mrs Deakin’s questions (for the moment) by the simple expedient of walking off without another word, feeling churned up and confused. Why on earth was he angry at finding me in Nutthill? Unless he was as afraid of his girlfriend finding out about his illicit session with me, as I was of James discovering it?

  Or perhaps he’s angry with himself for seducing me when I was drunk and (almost) incapable. So why come tearing across merely to freeze me to death and be rude?

  I spent ages trying to frame a casual way of telling James that Fergal Rocco was the new Lord of the Manor, but I needn’t have bothered, because a couple of days later he picked up a copy of the local rag in the pub, which he carried home to brandish under my nose like Exhibit A.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to explain that!’ he roared, his face an unbecoming shade of puce. It did not go well with sandy hair.

  The large photograph on the front page showed Fergal and me gazing longingly into each other’s eyes from an extremely close range.

  ‘Funny, I didn’t notice a photographer.’

  ‘Obviously – I
’m surprised you noticed anything except each other. I suppose you told him where you lived when you met in London?’

  ‘James! I’ve already told you I didn’t have a conversation with him.’

  Unfortunately my face burned guiltily, even though it was the truth: the odd word does not constitute a conversation. ‘What are you being so cross about? I swear I didn’t know he’d bought the Hall until that day. It was a surprise to both of us, and I was just exchanging polite—’

  ‘Polite! You’re staring at him as if he was every hero in your stupid books rolled into one.’

  That was pretty imaginative for James, though I resented the word ‘stupid’.

  ‘It’s the angle of the camera. See that hand at the edge of the picture there, clinging to Fergal’s arm? It belongs to the very young, very pretty American girl he was with.’

  James gave me a suspicious glare and bent to examine the evidence. The vein in his temple ceased to twitch and his colour subsided to something approaching normal.

  ‘All this is quite ridiculous and you ought to know me better by now, James.’

  ‘I felt ridiculous down at the pub when they were showing me the photograph and asking me how my wife came to be on such familiar terms with a rock star,’ he muttered disagreeably.

  ‘We are not on familiar terms, and I wouldn’t describe him as a rock star, exactly.’

  ‘You’re the expert,’ he said nastily, but with a little less conviction.

  ‘Since Mrs Deakin observed the whole of this eventful meeting, I expect the correct version is known by everyone within five miles. The men were just teasing you, and you rose to it beautifully. I don’t suppose it occurred to you to defend me?’

  He looked a bit shamefaced then, but did not apologise.

  When he’d gone out to the Shack, I looked at the paper again. It just goes to show that the camera can lie – as also, apparently, can the photocopier.

  I’d better give Mrs D. a brief outline of my youthful romance before other more lurid rumours begin to spread.

  James woke me up much later by falling over the bedroom furniture and Bess, which was a pity since I’d only just dropped off. (Every time I closed my eyes I saw Fergal’s dark, face staring at me: rather unsettling.) Once awake I couldn’t get back to sleep again, and all my worries rose like black scum to the surface of my mind.

  It had been possible almost to forget my fling with Fergal when I never expected to see him again, but not now, with him actually living here, when I could run into him any day of the week. Walking Nemesis.

  Then there’s James: what’s the matter with him since we moved here? Is he having some sort of premature mid-life crisis? If he isn’t in the Shack he’s at the pub, or Howard’s, or with his cronies.

  I used to look forward to our weekends, but now all we seem to do is bicker when we bump into one another on one of James’s rare visits to the house. And I’m doing all the house renovating and gardening (helped by Bob).

  It’s strange that James is so jealous of Fergal, yet doesn’t seem to want me physically himself. Perhaps I’ve let myself go a bit since we came here and should make the effort to dress up when he’s home. (Not that he makes the effort to be home that much, so it would be wasted.) I could try a bit, though.

  It would certainly make me feel better about running into Fergal, if James and I were presenting a United Marital Front, even though it may be a bit hollow at the heart.

  That made me remember some queen who wanted her heart buried at Calais, of all places. It’s probably under a hypermarket by now.

  Fergal: June 1999

  ‘I’M JUST LOOKING FOR A QUIET LIFE,’

  says rocker. Seen talking to an old friend,

  Mrs Leticia Drew, at the Nutthill Church Fête.’

  Nutthill District Advertiser

  Life is stranger than fiction, they say. Mine certainly is.

  I wouldn’t have chosen a house here if I’d known – and yet …

  Is she happy? She looked thin and tired, with dark circles under her eyes. Has she forgiven her husband for his lapse with the secretary? Does she regret sleeping with me?

  She must – she looked so horrified when she saw me and, perversely, it made me feel angry, because if I can’t have her, I don’t want to see her around all the time.

  But I’ll have to, and pretend what happened meant nothing to me, that she means nothing to me. I’m no marriage wrecker.

  Nerissa, who tagged along, recognised Tish from the gallery and is busy putting two and two together and making ten or more.

  Life’s a bugger sometimes.

  Chapter 18: Fencing

  Had a terse note in Fergal’s instantly familiar scrawly handwriting, saying he would look into the matter of the boundary fence as soon as he could, ‘Yours, F. Rocco’.

  Up yours too, buster.

  I now know all about his girlfriend courtesy of Mrs D., and it sounds like they were made for each other.

  ‘Her dad’s a Yank, and they live over at Lavingham. Rolling in it, they are. “Bright’s Computers Are the Best” and all that, you know?’ she informed me.

  I nodded, which was all the encouragement she needed.

  ‘She – this Nerissa they called her – she’s a handful. Ran off from school when she was just sixteen with a fairground worker and her dad didn’t find her for a fortnight. School wouldn’t have her back, so she had to go to a different, stricter one, and then she was finished.’

  ‘Finished?’

  From the sound of it, she’d barely begun!

  ‘Went abroad somewhere to learn the language and cook fancy foreign food. When she came back she was in the mags every week with a different man, and none of them what you might call a nice, steady boy. All actors and pop singers, and that footballer – well, his last girlfriend may say she walked into a door, but it was one with a fist attached to it if I’m any judge. But there, I don’t suppose she’ll listen to any advice, for she’s proper wild, for all she looks such a sweet, innocent young thing.’

  ‘She should suit Fergal Rocco very well then,’ I told her, slightly tartly. ‘They can compare their misspent pasts on long, dark, winter evenings.’

  ‘I suppose she may be settling down,’ Mrs D. suggested doubtfully. ‘After all, it’s been going on for quite a while now, and if he’s bought the Hall I expect he may be thinking of marrying? But I don’t suppose her dad will like him any better than the others, and he’s quite a bit older than she is, too. You know,’ she added, resting her bosom comfortably on the sugar bags, ‘it’s funny, but it’s a bit hard to believe those stories about Mr Rocco when you’re talking to him. He’s ever so pleasant. Sort of – warm.’

  Hot, more like.

  ‘A man can smile and smile yet still be a villain,’ I quoted. (Or misquoted. It was probably Shakespeare, most quotations seem to be.)

  ‘Oh, yes, that’s true, dear, as I well know. And it must have been right about those nuns in the fountain because I saw the photos myself in Exposé magazine.’

  She gave me one of those oblique glances, sharp enough to lance a boil at fifty paces, and added, ‘I still can’t get over you knowing him.’

  I tried to look bored with the subject. (Practice makes perfect.) ‘Oh – it’s so many years ago that I’m surprised he recognised me again.’

  After this conversation I went home and gave the kitchen the sort of thorough cleaning that includes scraping between the tiles with a toothpick. I was in that sort of mood.

  Maybe it’s because I can never quite cleanse myself of the taint of adultery. I’m a walking Whited Sepulchre.

  Speaking of Whited Sepulchres, James got awful sunburn through spending the first really hot Sunday of the year lying on a garden chair wearing his squash shorts, thus exposing a pair of corpse-like white legs. Anyone with a modicum of common sense would at least have basted them before going out and roasting them: but not James!

  Now he blames me for not telling him to put oil on. Am I my husband’
s keeper? (Apparently, yes!)

  Soon after he came in his legs started to turn strawberry-coloured and sore, and he vanished for ages into the bathroom, where he smeared nearly a whole pot of my expensive face cream over them.

  At bedtime he was annoyed when I laughed at him because he looked as though he was wearing scarlet leg warmers – though that was before I found out about the face cream.

  Today he’s lying on the bed moaning that his legs hurt too much for him to move. I had to call Lionel and explain why he wasn’t coming in, which didn’t go down too well, Uncle obviously considering that anything short of amputation shouldn’t stop business.

  However, I seized the opportunity to inform him that James could do with a rest anyway, working all these late nights and Saturdays, and that seemed to silence him. Perhaps he’ll be a bit more considerate of the workload he asks him to take on.

  Then I had to dash into town (having already run up and down the stairs for hours with drinks, cigars and food) to find something a bit less expensive and more effective than face cream for the invalid to anoint himself with. And some more face cream for me, since he’s now had the lot.

  But unfortunately for James, no sooner had he smeared on the cod-liver oil ointment recommended by the chemist, than Bess leaped on him with loud cries of delight and began frantically licking it off again, making him scream with pain. He insisted that I shut her out of the bedroom (as though it was me who allowed her upstairs in the first place).

  This was the high spot of an otherwise very tedious day. The bedroom was so unbearably full of cigar smoke at bedtime that I had to open all the windows, letting horrible flying things in. Then, after a night largely spent listening to Nature’s Wonderful Creations slaughter each other in the garden, I was woken at dawn as usual by the tractor starting up, followed by Mrs Peach’s hen chorus.

  Oh, the joys of country living!

  Still, on the upside, there was a hand-delivered invitation to a barbecue on the mat from Margaret Wrekin, addressed to ‘Marian Plentifold and husband’, which made James a bit sour.