About Last Night . . .

by Catherine Alliott

  14

  The following morning I rang Peter. I had a cigarette poised and lit it nervously the moment he answered: highly unusual before midday and without a glass of wine.

  ‘Morning, Molly, how’s tricks?’

  ‘Pretty good, thanks, and you?’

  ‘In peak condition.’

  ‘Peter, can you just remind me, how much are those people offering for the farm?’

  ‘The McDonalds? Asking price, as agreed.’

  ‘But I haven’t agreed, have I? I mean, not absolutely.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Well … you’ve accepted their offer.’

  ‘But isn’t it more usual to get a few rival bids going?’

  ‘Well, it depends. It’s certainly not terribly ethical to renege at this stage, Molly.’

  ‘Peter, I need more money, that’s the thing. Much more.’ I felt a bit breathless.

  ‘I can’t go and get a better offer now.’

  ‘No. Right. Yes, I can see that.’

  ‘And they’re a lovely couple. They’d be devastated.’

  ‘Well, quite. No, I do see. Paddy, then.’

  ‘Paddy?’

  ‘He wants the land.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you … get more from him?’

  The line went silent.

  ‘Paddy’s buying it at market value.’

  ‘Which, as we know, is a snip. No wonder he’s so excited, snooping round my fields, spying on my children. I think I can get double if I advertise it properly. Hasn’t it got development potential?’

  ‘Hardly. It’s farmland, not industrial brownfield, thank God.’

  ‘I think we should look into it anyway. Maybe get some competition going? I can’t just sell it off to the nearest neighbour, can I? I owe it to the children to get as much as possible for it.’

  ‘The children?’

  ‘Yes, you know, for their – inheritance.’ Golly, who was I, some Greek shipping heiress? ‘It’s just – I might need to buy in London, Peter, that’s all. And that’s a pricey exercise, as we know.’

  There was another pause. His voice when it came sounded weary. Sad, even. ‘I’ll see what I can do, Molly.’

  I felt crummy, obviously. Really crummy. But not for long. Heavens, not for long, because this was business, wasn’t it, for Pete’s sake? I couldn’t just give away my only asset, could I? David would be horrified. Actually – no. Don’t think about David. Instead I legged it upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time, which I can still do when I feel like it, and, in the privacy of my bedroom, logged on to Zoopla on my iPad to look at flats, whereupon an almighty row broke out downstairs. Wishing there was still a point at which all teenage children had to do a spell of National Service, I dashed back down to separate the warring parties. I found Minna, pink with fury, cheeks wet with tears, shrieking at Nico, who lay prone and unconcerned on his sofa, eyes on the television.

  ‘What is the problem now?’ I roared.

  ‘Nico has only ruined my entire life, that’s what!’ she screamed, fists balled.

  ‘Minna is employing ridiculous hyperbole as usual,’ said Nico, who liked to run verbal rings around his sister. ‘I simply told Ted she wasn’t at home when he came to the door with his dick out, which is what any responsible brother would do for his sister.’ He flashed me a look. ‘And she’s gone shouty-crackers.’

  ‘He lost his phone and he came to ask me to the pub and now he’ll probably take Gemma Parker!’ she sobbed.

  I sighed and perched on the arm of the sofa. ‘I think Nico’s right, Minna,’ I said gently. ‘You do need to be a bit more unavailable. A bit less eager.’ A text vibrated in my pocket. I couldn’t resist taking out my phone but didn’t look at it. ‘If you play a bit harder to get, he’ll be less interested in looking elsewhere.’

  ‘She needs to tell him to piss off,’ muttered Nico.

  ‘You know nothing about love!’ shouted Minna as I glanced at my message.

  ‘So loved our day. Can we do it again? Next week? Felix.’

  I went hot. My heart leaped right out of my throat, bounced around the room across the furniture then popped back in again.

  ‘Doesn’t she, Mum?’

  ‘What?’ I whispered, glancing up, my face hot.

  ‘She needs to tell him where to go. You don’t just jump if he says jump,’ Nico said forcefully. He swung his legs around and sat up. ‘Guys don’t like that.’

  ‘Don’t they?’ I said, unthinking, glancing at my phone again.

  ‘No, of course not, Mum. You need to be a bit mysterious.’ Minna perched on the other sofa arm. We sat silently by, absorbing the wisdom. ‘Jesus, it’s lesson one. Don’t make it too easy, be unavailable, and then they’ll start eating out of your hand.’

  My fingers had been itching to text back: ‘Yes! I loved it too! How lovely! Any day at all!’

  ‘Ted will just forget me if I do that,’ Minna gulped. ‘And find someone else. And don’t say – well then he’s not worth it, he is worth it!’ she said fiercely.

  ‘OK, I won’t say that. And I’ll admit it’s a gamble, he might go and shag Gemma Parker, but trust me, Minna, he looked a bit disappointed when I said you were still clubbing in London with Lucy.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ we breathed in unison.

  ‘I did. He needed it. That shook him a bit. He probably hasn’t been further than Worcester. He muttered something about letting him know on Facebook when you were back.’

  Minna and I were silent.

  ‘So … what should I do? Tell him I’m back?’

  ‘No, get the next train to London and do some clubbing with Lucy. Put the pictures on Facebook and then come back.’

  She swallowed. ‘I’m not sure he’ll like that.’ She scratched inside her arm where her eczema was flaring up. ‘He doesn’t like me flirting with other guys. He’s quite possessive. I mean – sensitive.’

  ‘Well, a lot of guys are, that’s standard. But trust me, Minna, if you want to stand any chance it’s your only option. Otherwise join the queue with Gemma and all the other bucolics.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s got that,’ she said doubtfully. Nico rolled his eyes in despair. Minna gave an almighty sniff but she looked a little calmer. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she muttered before slinking from the room, pausing only to grab her moth-eaten rabbit from down the side of a chair, whose ear she still stroked in extremis. Still scratching her arm, she went up to her room.

  ‘Thanks, Nico,’ I breathed when she was out of earshot.

  ‘My pleasure.’ He picked up the remote, changed channels, and lay down again. ‘Anything I can do for you, Mum? Any little creases that need ironing out in your life?’

  I stood up quickly. ‘No. Thank you.’ Nico was remarkably perceptive; something I often forgot. He was surprisingly in touch with what the Daily Mail would be pleased to call His Feminine Side.

  Very much wanting to follow more basic instincts, I nonetheless steeled myself, went into the kitchen and sat down at my desk. I looked at my soap and underwear emails on the computer. A smattering of orders had come in. Dutifully I turned and packed up the requisite items from the pile on the kitchen table into Jiffy bags. Halfway through packing a sparkly thong I did take out my phone and read the message again. But I resisted texting Felix back for at least an hour. I even made a phone call to Twinkly Andy, my underwear supplier, who sometimes got a bit carried away on the glamour front, and who promised to tone the sequins down a bit. Then I went upstairs to sit quietly on my bed and reply. I wrote:

  ‘I enjoyed it too. Can’t do next week, I’m afraid, but possibly the following one?’

  I pressed my knees together, shut my eyes tight, crossed myself and pressed ‘send’. A few seconds later, a text came back.

  ‘Following week I’m in Vienna – shame.’

  I shot up from the bed and paced around the room, appalled. I went cold. Then I felt dreadfully hot and sweaty. I licked my lips and before I could allow
myself to think further sent back:

  ‘Oh – hang on – just realized, I have to come up on Tuesday to deliver something to Lucy!’

  In a flash he was back:

  ‘Great. Let’s have dinner Tuesday night. I’ll be in touch nearer the time.’

  I gazed at my phone as if it were a devotional icon: kissed it reverently, pressed it to my cheek, then pocketed it guiltily. Not very smooth. Not at all classy. But still, I had my date. Nico would strongly disapprove, I thought, cringing. I crossed to my dressing table and feverishly rearranged bottles and creams with a nervous, fluttery hand. But on the other hand, I thought as I sat down and looked at my reflection which was flushed and bright-eyed, I didn’t have all the time in the world, did I? As a middle-aged woman? It was not on my side as it was on Minna’s. I wasn’t convinced a week or two would make a spectacular difference to my laughter lines and eye bags – I leaned forward and studied my face closely in the mirror – but still. Apart from anything else, how exciting!

  Next door, I could hear Minna opening and shutting drawers, packing to go to London and escape the object of her desires, whilst I, of course, was flinging myself at mine. I picked up my precious Touche Éclat: raised it to my dark circles. No – no, I wasn’t. Not flinging. I lowered my concealer and eyed my reflection. Just … accommodating a busy man’s very demanding schedule. That’s all. Any unfortunate juxtaposition with my teenage daughter’s newfound restraint was purely coincidental. I painted away with my magic wand, covering up all sorts of inconveniences.

  The following Tuesday, almost to assuage my own conscience, I cut it rather fine. Minna was, to her enormous credit, still in London with Lucy and had asked for a bag of clothes to be brought up in case she stayed longer, which was encouraging. It also meant I had a genuine reason to go to the flat and deposit her bag, and of course mine. I’d intended to arrive in the afternoon but at the last minute a buyer suddenly materialized for Nutty, the iron-grey gelding I’d bought at auction some time ago and failed to sell, and the woman was offering the asking price if she could see him today. Also, she was coming with a trailer, she told me, which was a frightfully good sign.

  Naturally, Mrs Pritchard was late. One o’clock became two o’clock as I waited anxiously in the yard. Minna’s and my bags were already stashed in the car and although I was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, I had smart London clothes laid out on the bed upstairs for a lightning change. The make-up was already in place, the hair blow-dried courtesy of the local salon – I was all ready to catch the three o’clock train. She’d sounded so excited, Mrs Pritchard, when she’d rung: thrilled to have found exactly what she wanted, the ad on Horse Quest reading so marvellously. ‘I hardly need to get on him!’ she’d gushed. ‘He sounds completely perfect!’ Please God, let her be quick. Let her buy the completely perfect horse in seconds flat so I could be on my way to London, with four thousand pounds in my pocket.

  Half an hour later and with no reply from her mobile, I realized she wasn’t coming. I ran upstairs, changed, and ran back down, bringing my jeans with me to throw in the wash, when all of a sudden, a silver Range Rover swept through the gate into the yard. I quickly shed my London clothes but got in a terrible muddle putting my jeans back on, which were inside out, so that as, not Mrs Pritchard, but Mr, strode directly towards the kitchen window, I was still hopping around in my pants trying to get a leg in. It wasn’t ideal. But neither was the fact that Mr Pritchard, when I finally burst out flustered to meet him, was a lean, bald, tight-lipped man whose bandy legs looked as if they’d been hugging top-class eventers all their life. Wearing what looked like pre-Raj breeches, he had a clipped, military manner that suggested he knew exactly what he was doing. Indeed, as I hurried him across the yard and opened the stable door, he told me he’d seen six or seven eventers already that week and had rejected all of them. He also told me his wife didn’t know what she was talking about and that it was much better for him to buy a horse on her behalf as she tended to get emotionally swayed. My heart sank deep into my boots. Particularly when I led Nutty out and Pritchard felt his legs.

  ‘He’s got a slight lesion on his left hind,’ he said, straightening up.

  ‘That’s an ancient injury,’ I told him. ‘He’s never lost the bump, but he’s as sound as a bell. Trot him up, if you like.’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Right. That meant I had to trot him up, which wasn’t entirely in the script. I was rather hoping Pritchard would do it in the absence of Nico, who’d suddenly made himself annoyingly scarce. It was another warm day and my make-up would glow and I’d get sweaty if I wasn’t careful. I was careful. I trotted Nutty very, very slowly, jogging gently beside him, barely getting him out of a walk and keeping my arms right away from my sides, like an ape.

  ‘OK,’ he said doubtfully when I’d jogged back. ‘Although I wouldn’t have minded an extended trot. Can I see him ridden?’

  This was a standard request and one I was totally prepared for but totally unprepared to carry out, since a riding hat on my freshly coiffed hair was out of the question.

  ‘Ah, well, you see, both of my daughters are away – he belongs to my daughter Lucy’ – always better to claim a family pet than a horse bought at auction – ‘and I can’t find my son and I’m afraid I don’t ride any more. So if you wouldn’t mind just hopping on yourself,’ I beamed charmingly. ‘He’s perfectly safe.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, but I’d like to see his paces.’

  ‘Yes, I appreciate that, but—’

  ‘Isn’t that your son?’

  I swung around. There was no denying that the lanky, bare-footed, hunched adolescent could probably fit the profile. Nico dripped out of the house, in communion with his mobile, trailed by the dogs.

  ‘Yes. But he might not—’

  ‘Excuse me!’ Mr Pritchard’s glass-shattering, commanding tones pierced the air. Nico stopped as if he’d been shot. ‘Excuse me, can I have a word?’ Definitely ex-Army.

  Nico looked as if he’d been turned to stone. At length he turned: stared. Then he came across, very, very slowly.

  ‘Um, Nico, I’m selling dear Nutty here, as you know,’ I said breathlessly. ‘Or showing him, at least, to Mr Pritchard. Darling, would you be an absolute angel and hop up for me? He’d like to see his paces.’

  Nico squinted at me incredulously. ‘I haven’t ridden for months, Mother. Why don’t you?’

  ‘Because – I’ve lost my nerve, remember?’ I stared at him hard, willing him to twig.

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since I fell off, remember?’ I made my eyes very large.

  ‘But you were riding yesterday. I saw you get the tack out.’

  ‘Yes,’ I gasped. ‘And that’s when I fell off.’

  ‘You fell off this horse?’ said Pritchard, frowning.

  ‘N– no.’ I gulped. ‘I fell off … Tufty.’

  We all looked doubtfully at Tufty in the adjacent stable. He was the children’s beloved first pony and the size of a large dog.

  ‘Why were you riding Tufty?’ asked Nico incredulously.

  ‘To – to try and get my nerve back.’

  ‘But I thought you said you fell off him and lost it?’

  ‘Yes, for the second time,’ I hissed, totally losing track of my web of lies and feeling a bit faint. ‘I fell off him twice. Now, Nico, are you, or are you not, going to get on Nutty and show Mr Pritchard his paces?’

  ‘Not,’ he said firmly. He turned on his heel and sloped off.

  I watched him go, wishing, actually, that Mr Pritchard would do the same. This was not an in-the-bag sale. This was not a done deal. This was a protracted sale and I knew all about these. Subsequent visits would follow – two or three sometimes – complete with trainers and other, so-called equine experts and, four thousand pounds or not, I needed to catch my train.

  ‘Very well, in the absence of a rider, I’ll take him round the paddock myself. But I’ll be back another day when perhaps one of your daughters can
ride him.’

  ‘Yes, another day, another day,’ I said happily. ‘And tell you what, why don’t you ride him then, when they’re back?’

  ‘No, since I’m here, I’ll ride him now,’ he said firmly.

  Plucking the saddle and bridle from the stable door where I’d handily placed them, he tacked him up himself in seconds flat. Then, taking the reins, he sprang athletically into the saddle. Nutty’s eyes flickered imperceptibly but recognizing he had a pro on board, he immediately found his manners. In moments he was off, on the bit, neck arched, chin on chest, at a showy walk, through the open gate and into the paddock. Pritchard walked then trotted endless circles and figures of eight whilst I stood at the fence glancing frantically at my watch, calling, ‘Lovely! That’s probably enough, isn’t it?’ whilst he totally ignored me. Instead he barked orders as he passed at a canter now: ‘I’d like a small jump please, a cavalletti.’ Or: ‘Could you put up a double?’ All of which meant I had to dash around in the heat, putting up poles and crossbars while he hopped over them and then adding tricky colourful fillers to see if Nutty shied, which he didn’t. It took so long I thought I was going to be sick.

  Finally I strode into the middle of the paddock and roared, ‘I think he’s probably had enough now!’

  Pritchard pulled up beside me. Glared down. ‘Why? Is he unfit?’

  ‘No – no. But I have to catch a train. I’m going to London.’

  ‘Oh. Right. You should have said.’ He dismounted in one fluid movement.

  The truth. So simple. Why hadn’t I lunged for it earlier?

  ‘He’s a nice horse,’ he said, giving him a quick pat. ‘I’ll come back and have another look.’

  ‘OK, goodbye,’ I breathed, snatching the reins from him.

  ‘Oh. Right.’ He looked startled. ‘You are in a rush.’

  ‘Yes, terrible rush,’ I said, swiftly unsaddling Nutty and pulling him to the fence, where I left the tack. Yelling for Nico, I raced away with the sweaty horse beside me, running now, full pelt through the yard. I popped him smartly in his stable, yanked the bridle off, and flung it over the door.