About Last Night . . .

by Catherine Alliott

  Right now, though, my parents’ unlikely yet successful alliance was the least of my worries. I swept armfuls of underwear from the table and shoved them into a black plastic sack. Right now, I had other things on my mind. Like how to get the men to whom I regularly sold boxer shorts to buy attractive undergarments for their wives or girlfriends – to this end I added a fistful of brochures featuring scantily clad ladies to my sack – and how to get an absolutely first-class gelding past a totally biased, anally retentive vet. I hurried with my sack and car keys to the door and thence to the village. Any suggestion that I might be a chip off the old block, incidentally, I regard as utterly scurrilous.

  Coming back from the post office some time later, having stuffed and sealed and stamped countless brown envelopes, roping in my friend Lauren behind the counter to lend a helping hand, I got out of the car and encountered Nico in the yard, leading Nutty from his stable. Paddy Campbell’s red pickup over by the barn confirmed my fears. Damn. He was early, as usual. I glanced at my watch. Or, OK, on time. And I’d hoped to get Nutty out for five minutes before he came to loosen him up a bit. Not that he needed loosening up, but no gentleman of a certain age wants to trot smartly from a standing start – which was what I could see Paddy was about to get Nico have him do – when they’ve just opened their eyes of a morning, do they? I hastened across.

  ‘Morning, Paddy!’ I cried jovially, hoping to set the tone for the next twenty minutes or so. ‘What d’you think of my lovely boy, then?’

  ‘Well, he’s an old boy, we all know that, don’t we, Molly?’ He glanced round as I approached: tall, broad-shouldered and with tousled auburn hair and a narrow, intelligent face. He’d be attractive if he wasn’t always so cross and busy.

  ‘Oh, he’s got a bit of maturity for sure, but that’s what purchasers want these days, isn’t it? A reliable sort who’s been there, done everything, is always in the rosettes and is not going to spook at the first ditch he sees. No one wants to buy anything under ten these days.’

  ‘He’s well over fifteen,’ he said as Nico brought him trotting back, jogging beside him.

  ‘Thanks, darling,’ I said gratefully, seeing my son looking mutinous.

  ‘No problem,’ he replied, dropping the head collar rope. ‘Just the first two hours of my revision down the drain with all this bloody animal maintenance. Your loss, Mother.’ He slouched off into the house, already rolling a cigarette as he went. My loss.

  ‘Anyway, he’s a fine-looking horse, don’t you think?’ I said, keeping a bright smile going. ‘Our Nutty? Galway Nuthatch is his registered name. But he’s more like thirteen or fourteen, I agree.’

  He ignored me, bending down to feel his legs.

  ‘Nothing wrong with those,’ I chortled, wishing the Hiltons had asked for old Charlie Parker instead. He was much more of a pushover, almost bribable with tea and biscuits and a plea to tell his country yarns which went round and round and which we’d all heard umpteen times, before he signed the requisite form and headed off to see to someone’s elderly Labrador.

  ‘Cup of tea, Paddy?’

  ‘No thanks. Trot him up again for me, would you, Molly? Nico barely got him out of a walk.’

  I gave Nutty a smart tap on the bottom with the end of the rope and we set off briskly up the track, turning at the corner. I smiled delightedly as we came back in an effort to distract Paddy, but his eyes were firmly on the horse’s legs, not mine. If he smiled occasionally it would help, I thought irritably. He was so flipping serious all the time, although Anna, with the pigs, told me otherwise.

  ‘Oh no, he’s frightfully smiley, Moll, he loves my brood. Thinks I should show my sows, and I might at the county show. He’s definitely got a sunnier side. He’s probably a bit po-faced with you because you’re a horse dealer.’

  ‘You mean the rural equivalent of a second-hand car dealer? The oldest profession in the land besides prostitution?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I’m a sheep farmer, too,’ I’d reasoned.

  ‘Yes, but you hardly ever get him out for those any more.’

  ‘Because he’s too bloody expensive.’

  ‘Well, quite. But you can’t expect him to beam at you when you’re trying to get a dodgy flexion test past him.’

  That bit was coming up next, I realized, when I’d come to a grinning halt. Paddy was about to pick each of Nutty’s legs up in turn, hold it bent backwards for thirty seconds then ask Nutty to trot smartly off again. On the last leg Nutty faltered slightly for the first couple of paces, as anyone would, I told Paddy, if someone suspended your leg in the air for a protracted amount of time.

  Again, no comment, just the pursed lips as he wrote something down on his pad, then a stethoscope in his ears as he went to listen to Nutty’s heart.

  ‘I expect that’s pounding a bit, mine certainly is!’ I told him, wishing I’d thought to brush my hair and put some lippy on before this wretched man came round, criticizing my livestock. God, the Hiltons loved this horse and were mustard-keen to buy him and have young Samantha trot off to pony club shows on him. They were only having him vetted because they were new to the game and every busybody in the valley said they should. In my opinion it was entirely unnecessary unless you were contemplating Badminton. I tried this tack with Paddy.

  ‘Did you ride as a child, Paddy?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Ever had a horse vetted?’

  ‘I very much doubt it. We just rode whatever was in the field, or on offer from friends. I grew up in rural Ireland, don’t forget. If anyone bought a horse it was bound to be their uncle’s or their cousin’s. No one looked too closely.’

  ‘Exactly!’ I exclaimed, seizing on this scrap of humanity.

  ‘But Molly, times have changed.’ He took his stethoscope from his ears and looked at me squarely. Nice, steady brown eyes in a tanned face. ‘The Hiltons are paying me a sizeable fee to examine this horse. I’m not going to lie to them, am I?’

  ‘Good heavens, no! I’m not suggesting such a thing. Not even suggesting there’s anything to lie about,’ I said as he lifted Nutty’s tail and peered, suspiciously, up his backside.

  ‘No warts. No laminitis,’ I assured him and he nodded, agreeing for once. ‘I’m just saying in this bureaucratic, litigious world, it’s all got a bit ridiculous.’

  He dropped the tail and gave me a level look.

  ‘You mean, I’m more nervous about being sued by the Hiltons because I pass him and then he goes lame in a fortnight?’

  I shrugged, kept the bright smile going. ‘Well …’ It was exactly what I meant.

  ‘Molly, trust me, I’d love to pass your horse. And I’d love for the Hiltons to buy him and for you to get some creditors off your back and for everyone to be happy.’

  ‘Yes,’ I breathed, thinking, now you’re talking. In this small valley everyone knew everyone else’s business.

  ‘But if he’s in any way wide of the mark they’ve asked me to judge him by, you know I can’t do that.’

  ‘But he’s not, necessarily.’

  He packed his stethoscope back in his bag and made for his car.

  ‘Charlie would,’ I muttered as I tailed him.

  ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.’

  ‘OK. And I totally take it back. Charlie would be as professional as you are.’

  ‘Quite.’

  As he threw his bag of tricks in the back I wondered where in Ireland he’d grown up. I hadn’t known that: he didn’t have an accent, but I didn’t like to ask. I turned to where I’d popped Nutty back in his stable, threw my head back and beamed.

  ‘He’s got the sweetest face, don’t you think? A really kind eye?’

  ‘He’s not bad-looking, I agree. Not as handsome as the one Biddy Price got from the Morgans, though. You were a bit slow there.’

  ‘I was at a bloody trade fair!’ I fumed, still furious about that. Typical. When a local couple with a computer business and a yard full of hunters had gon
e bust overnight, where was I? ‘I was in effing Newcastle, buying sodding lavender soap,’ I told him.

  ‘Not Provence?’ He gave a tiny smile. ‘Like it says on the label?’

  ‘Lavender grows in Newcastle too, Paddy.’

  He laughed. ‘Of course it does.’

  ‘What did she get? Biddy?’ My teeth were grinding even as I asked.

  ‘A seventeen-hand hunter out of Barley Clover. Paid three thousand, sold it the other day to someone in the Cottismore for seven.’

  Shit. I’d had my eye on that hunter. I knew exactly which one he meant, a lovely type who’d carry anyone over the biggest country. Bugger. I felt faint with disappointment. ‘So you’ll pass him, will you, Paddy?’ I asked anxiously as he got into the cab of his red pickup and slammed the door. Paddy rested his elbow through the open window and broke into the first proper grin of the day, which caused many ruddy creases to appear.

  ‘Now Molly, you know the rules. That’s for me to tell my client, Mark Hilton, and for you to find out.’

  ‘Ah yes, of course.’ I feigned mock surprise, slapping the palm of my hand on my forehead. ‘I clean forgot.’ But I was encouraged by the joke and the smile. He surely wouldn’t lead me on like this if he was about to fail him, would he?

  ‘Nice to see you anyway, Paddy,’ I called through the window, striking what I hoped was an attractive pose in the yard, hands in the pockets of my faded skinny jeans, the wind in my hair.

  ‘You too, Moll.’ Having smartly reversed in an arc he paused to change into first gear. His expression changed too. ‘Oh, and by the way, I was sorry to hear about your uncle.’

  Without waiting for me to reply, he took off through the open gate in a crunch of tyres on gravel, disappearing in a cloud of dust.

  3

  I stood there a moment in the empty yard, watching the red tail gate disappear down the lane. Then I turned on my heel and beetled around the back of the house and up the grassy slope to where the wooden gypsy caravan, painted in green and yellow swirls, perched on the terraced lawn. Leaping the rotten steps to the door I knocked, but only in a perfunctory manner. Whatever I’d be disturbing could easily be resumed, and I was bound to know whoever was inside. As it happened, when I burst into the predominately pink, softly lit interior – throws on the walls, fringes everywhere, candles burning – Cosmic Pam was at her table dispensing words of wisdom to a couple of very familiar customers. I stared. Put my hands on my hips.

  ‘I thought you were doing crucial Politics revision?’

  ‘Oh. Yeah.’ Nico withdrew his palm from his grandmother’s grip. ‘I just wondered if Granny had any thoughts on another referendum. You know, in Scotland. It’s very topical, Mum, and we’ve been told to expect a question on it.’ He flashed me a grin before slinking past, off down the steps.

  ‘And I thought you were going to help Lucy source some flowers for her shop?’ I demanded of Minna, who was curled up on a sofa in the corner, awaiting her turn as she shuffled through some tarot cards, clearly putting the best ones on top.

  ‘I am. I’ve got a meeting with a guy with a field later. Chill, Mum. Granny and I were just going to have a chat.’

  ‘A field? What – you’re going to grow them? I thought you were going to find a producer for next year? Doesn’t Mick Turner grow daffodils?’

  ‘What, and include a middleman? What sort of a family d’you think I’m from?’

  ‘Yes, well, Minna, maybe I’ll do your cards later,’ said Mum, catching a dangerous look in my eye. Minna sighed heavily, heaved herself wearily from the sofa – still not dressed, I noticed – and shuffled off too. I rounded on my mother.

  ‘Mum, did you tell Paddy Campbell my beloved uncle is dead?’

  ‘I might have mentioned it when I bumped into him outside Budgens, yes. Why?’

  ‘Because I know what you’re doing. I know exactly what you’re doing. You’re building up momentum. Building up a head of steam so that by the end of the week everyone in the village will be consoling me about my uncle who I was apparently so close to, and then the following week, they’ll be asking me if I was the nearest relative, and then the one after that, if I was the only remaining relative, and after that, whether he’d, euphemistically “remembered me”.’

  ‘What nonsense,’ she countered smoothly, shuffling the cards Minna had deposited in a heap on the table. She adjusted the strange beaded headscarf she wore around her brow for these occasions.

  ‘Stop being such an interfering old bag,’ I told her sternly before turning and exiting myself, banging the door shut and falling right over Minna who was perched on the bottom step, and who’d clearly been listening at the door. I ignored her because everyone listened at doors in this family, nothing was ever private, and stalked off to the house. As I went I wished, very fervently, that I lived alone: preferably on a Caribbean island, where I’d run a beach bar, without any wretched sheep, who, having spotted me, were trailing me along the fence line, bleating piteously, because the grass was still not through and they wouldn’t mind a touch more expensive concentrate if I could spare it. I couldn’t. At £2.75 a kilo they’d have to wait until their rations tomorrow.

  ‘Granny’s got a point,’ Minna told me, tailing me at a shuffling trot in her Ugg boots.

  I ignored her and hurried on, knowing I had to get some packaging organized by Friday if I was to stand any chance of getting the soap I’d found from a cheap supplier in Gateshead – I might not have got the hunter but my trip to Newcastle had been a success – wrapped in attractive mauve tissue and off to my outlets for the summer season. Oh, and sealed with a sticker Lauren at the post office, who was also a freelance designer, was creating for me with something French-sounding on it. I might tell her to steer clear of ‘Savon de Provence’, though, after Paddy’s remark, and go for something a bit vaguer. ‘Savon à la française’, perhaps. I didn’t want to be sued under the Trade Descriptions Act, which I knew was what he’d been getting at. Bastard.

  ‘Hasn’t she?’ Minna insisted as we hot-footed it into the kitchen, where Nico was on his laptop, presumably back on Facebook, not a folder or textbook in sight. I glared at him and he rolled his eyes and dripped upstairs, like Minna, still not dressed, taking his laptop with him.

  ‘Mum.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hasn’t she got a point?’

  ‘About what?’ I countered, playing for time.

  ‘About Dad’s uncle. I mean, if we are – or you are – the beneficiary, surely it’s only right?’

  ‘I didn’t know him, Minna.’ I scooped up armfuls of mauve tissue paper from the dresser and moved them bodily to the table. ‘How can that be right?’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So everything. And, as I’ve told Granny, if anything’s legally due, it will appear, won’t it?’

  ‘No, because you have to make a claim. He died intestate. There’s no will. Granny’s checked. So what you have to do is get in touch with his solicitor, say you’re the nearest relative, and claim the inheritance. You’d be mad not to at least try, Mum.’

  ‘And who, pray, is his solicitor?’

  ‘Hamilton and Simpson, sixty-four Onslow Terrace, London SW3,’ came floating down from upstairs. Nico, his Apple Mac open on his lap, was sitting in his position on the top step. ‘His telephone number’s here too, Mum. I’ll print it all out and leave it on the kitchen table. Just give him a ring. It’s an understandable enquiry under the circumstances. Where’s the harm?’ He smiled his most engaging of smiles through the bars, looking so much like his father it hurt my heart.

  Later that day, when I’d delivered the sticky labels to Lauren, whose house I was supposed to be returning to for book club that night – I told her it depended on how many pieces of tissue I’d cut out, and also that I hadn’t read the book, and she said, so what, just come for a drink and a laugh – I wondered if I was in the wrong business. Or businesses. What if I just chucked in all my sidelines and retrained? There hadn’t been much cal
l for PR executives in rural Herefordshire – I’d tried – which was why I’d diversified in the first place, but what if, I don’t know, I became a nurse or something? Years of training, of course. But might it pay off in the long run? Or a doctor, perhaps. I turned the corner into the lane that led to my house. My fields bordered this lane and I stared forensically as I drove along, mentally checking the water, the lambs, the chaotic fences tied up with bits of binder twine. My life had essentially consisted of Getting By these past few years, but now that the children were older and possibly about to leave home, why shouldn’t I be – no, obviously not a doctor – but a civil servant or something? Like Tia? I’d popped in to see her on the way home and delivered a cheque, and even she – whilst agreeing it wasn’t her dream job, and certainly not her first choice – had conceded it nevertheless paid the bills.