About Last Night . . .

by Catherine Alliott

  Mr Pritchard followed slowly. I felt his eyes on my back as I dashed back into the house. As I glanced through the kitchen window, I saw him shrug and go towards his car.

  ‘Nico!’ I yelled in the direction of my ever prone child as I took the stairs two at a time. I tore into my bedroom, ripped off my jeans and T-shirt, and was about to don my London clobber when I realized I couldn’t possibly and hopped in the shower to hose myself down. I concentrated on pits and parts and avoided face and hair but, inevitably, caught disastrous sprinkles. I hopped out, dried myself hastily, and had just got my underwear and skirt on, when Nico finally appeared.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll give you twenty pounds if you hose Nutty down, feed him, and tip him out in the paddock.’

  His eyes popped. ‘Twenty quid?’

  ‘Yes, twenty quid. That sale’s in the bag subject to Lucy or Minna riding him, so I’ll be flush.’ I reached for my deodorant. ‘Oh – and clean the tack.’ I blasted away under my arm. Froze. ‘Shit.’

  ‘What?’

  I stared at the can of aerosol. ‘Fucking hairspray!’

  He blinked. ‘Well, at least you’d shaved. Otherwise you’d have, like, rigid bush under your arm. Nasty.’

  ‘Bugger, I’ll have to wash again now. Just do it, Nico, OK?’ I seized my purse and flung the money at him, knowing if I’d gone for less, he might dither.

  Nico turned to go. ‘God. He must be hot if you’re flinging twenty-quid notes around,’ he muttered.

  I swung about. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  He disappeared, trousering the cash.

  Minutes later, as I turned my car smartly round in the yard, aiming now for the twenty-two minutes past, I saw him lead Nutty out. He tied him up and picked up the hose. I gave him a cheery wave and yelled the usual stuff about keeping an eye on the sheep and the chickens and the dogs and then I was off, but as I plastered on a smile and told him there was a pizza in the freezer he gave me a very old-fashioned look. I had a horrible feeling he was about to say, ‘Just watch yourself, Mum’ as Lucy had done, so I shot off through the gates before he could.

  Happily the lanes were clear: no ponderous tractors to seethe behind, no heaving hay lorries to lurch dangerously past. And happily, too, I had ten minutes in hand, I realized, since my watch, according to the clock in the car, was slightly fast. Sighing with relief, I sank back in my seat and tried to relax. Breathe, Molly. Just breathe. I turned on Classic FM for karma. As I was slowing down to approach a junction, I was honked suddenly from behind. I glanced in my rear-view mirror. Bloody hell. Bloody hell. Wretched Paddy Campbell. All I needed. I stopped, stuck my head out of the window and glared back at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pull over. I want a word.’

  Flaming cheek.

  ‘I haven’t got time, I’m catching a train.’

  I realized, to my horror, he was already out of his pickup and striding towards me. Plunging the car into first, I shot off, seeing his shocked face in the rear-view mirror. I grinned. Arrogant twat. I drove on. Some minutes later, I rounded a bend and came to another junction but there was Paddy’s red Jeep, right in front of me, sideways on, blocking the road. Bastard. I screeched to a halt. I knew exactly what he’d done. He’d gone through the ford, which was a short cut through Jim Baker’s land, through his farmyard, in fact; a route only to be used in extremis. Paddy was standing waiting in the lane. Livid, I leaped from my car. I strode up to him.

  ‘Get out of my way, Paddy, I’ve got a train to catch.’

  ‘Not until I’ve had a word with you first. What d’you mean by putting up the price of your land?’

  ‘I’m putting it up to the market value. I’m not giving it away, I’d be mad to do that. I’m getting what’s fair.’

  ‘You know damn well I’m the only one who’s going to buy it – who else would want eighty acres in the middle of nowhere without a house attached?’

  ‘The Foxes might.’ My other, elderly neighbours.

  ‘I’ve already asked, as apparently you have too, and they don’t. You’re just forcing my hand way above what’s fair.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s fair. You getting out of my way and letting me through and talking about this some other time.’

  ‘Some other time that suits you, I imagine.’

  ‘Yes, Paddy, that’s right. My land, my rules, and if I were you I’d be a little more obsequious.’

  ‘Oh I’d like to—’

  ‘What?’ We were facing each other now, inches apart in the middle of the road, glaring fiercely. ‘What would you like to do? Put me over your knee and spank me or something, like you’d like to do to my children?’

  I have absolutely no idea where that came from. It had appeared in my head from space, and employing no filter whatsoever, I’d said it.

  Paddy blanched, taken aback. Then, in his eyes, I saw something arrive in his head too, and just as impulsively he acted on it. In the middle of the lane, in the middle of nowhere, he took me forcefully in his arms and kissed me, very thoroughly, on the lips.

  15

  Don’t ask me why I didn’t pull away immediately. Perhaps I was too shocked. Too completely and utterly wrong-footed. I did pull away but, if I’m honest, it was a second later than might have been appropriate, under the circumstances. In fact, if I’m being totally truthful, we parted at exactly the same moment, when a car horn sounded abruptly behind us. Appalled, we pulled apart like deflecting magnets. Paddy’s eyes were still full of something extraordinary, but when he glanced over my head at the car, whose path we were blocking, they instantly became guarded. Without giving me another look he turned on his heel and strode to the cab of his truck. In one seamless movement he was in, executing a smart three-point turn in the road, and roaring away throatily in the opposite direction, splashing back through the ford and the farmyard, scattering chickens and ducks. I turned and hastened back to my own motor vehicle just as Mr McCarthy from the Spar in the village stuck his head out of the window of his stationary blue Ford Focus behind me. A huge grin split his desiccated, weather-beaten old face.

  ‘Tha’s nice, luv. I didn’t know you and veterinary were like that.’

  I froze, my hand on my door handle. Then I hurried over, bent down to his open window.

  ‘No. We’re not. Not remotely. In fact, I don’t even like him.’

  He looked taken aback. ‘Right you are, luv. None of my business, I’m sure.’

  ‘And he doesn’t like me, either. He really doesn’t.’

  He gazed at me, astonished. Then he threw back his grizzled old head and roared with laughter, revealing an unusual dental arrangement. ‘Does he not? Is that so? Don’t you worry, luv, your secret’s safe with me.’

  ‘Oh, I do hope so, Mr McCarthy, I sincerely hope so, because there’s absolutely nothing in it, OK? Nothing whatsoever.’ I gave him a searching look. He grinned at me again, revealing those terrible teeth. ‘I have to dash,’ I told him and with that I raced back to my car, fired up the engine and plunged it into first. I swung a left at the T-junction before roaring away down the hill.

  At least it had been Mr McCarthy, and not Mrs, I thought, raking a frazzled hand through my hair and glancing in the mirror as he trundled after me at a more leisurely pace. She was a dreadful gossip. Mr, I felt sure, would be as good as his word and keep it to himself. Men did, didn’t they? But it wasn’t ideal, in a small place like this. What had he been thinking, Paddy, to – to kiss me like that? So – you know – roughly. No. No, that was wrong. I swallowed. Rudely. Yes, that’s what he’d been, plain rude. And I would tell him so. I straightened up decisively behind the wheel. The very next time I saw him. Tell him he was out of order. I drove on through the lanes towards town. After a bit, I touched my lips. My fingertips stayed there a moment. It was odd, though. I felt … rather extraordinary. Well, of course, who wouldn’t? I was bound to feel peculiar. Not excited, which I’d been about to say; more, well, disloca
ted. Because let’s face it, I hadn’t been kissed for five years. And certainly not like that. Ever, really, like that. Well. Perhaps Henri. Definitely Henri. I felt my mind crouch, ready to spring to Paris with effortless propulsion, but I halted it immediately in its tracks. Oh yes, I knew how to do that. Knew which buttons to press. Fortunately, anyway, I was on the cusp of a complicated roundabout and then the dual carriageway which required concentration, and then, in moments, I was hanging a left into the station forecourt and going around the back of the building to park.

  Once on the train – the next one again, of course, the forty-eight, and by now, horribly late – I took out my phone and read a text.

  ‘Sorry about that. Can’t think what came over me. Thought you needed teaching a lesson, I suppose. It meant nothing. Paddy.’

  Fury raged. I texted back. ‘You were totally out of order and I’m appalled. I hope you’re thoroughly ashamed of yourself. Too right it meant nothing.’

  ‘Stupid of me to imagine you could read. Can’t help noticing my initial text contained the word “sorry”. Are you one of those people who likes to milk an apology?’

  ‘I’m one of those people who knows a genuine apology when I see one, and yours had all the sincerity of a rat in a trap.’

  ‘Having trouble with the rat analogy. Tends to apply to a person of dubious moral integrity with a propensity to double-cross. Anyone spring to mind?’

  ‘Are you calling me a rat?’

  ‘Your word, not mine. This is childish and I have a calf to deliver.’

  ‘Oh, suddenly it’s childish and you have a calf to deliver, aren’t you the big grown-up man with an important job?’

  No response. Which was annoying. Because I’d wanted him to be last, not me, and then I’d ignore him. But now he was ignoring me. Although I did check my phone occasionally. Twat. I pocketed it, wishing my final text had been a trifle more dignified. No matter. He could go to hell as far as I was concerned. I rummaged in my bag and concentrated instead on my latest find in WHSmith, which was far more exciting, and far more accessible than anything else I’d discovered so far. It was a reassuringly slim volume entitled Contemporary Art for Beginners.

  Lucy and Minna were getting ready to go out when I arrived at the flat, and I have to say, Minna looked fantastic. Having let me in she hopped back up on the sofa to finish her make-up in front of the only good mirror in the place, Lucy presumably in the bedroom from whence I could hear music.

  ‘Darling.’ I dropped my bags in the middle of the room, which looked like a changing room at Topshop, littered with clothes and overflowing ashtrays and bras on radiators, doing my best to ignore what wasn’t my business. ‘You look amazing. You’ve lost weight.’

  She had. Minna wasn’t fat but she could run to a tummy and chunky thighs if she wasn’t careful.

  ‘Thanks, Mum. I haven’t eaten at all since I’ve got here, just drunk loads. And I’ve had so much fun.’

  I wasn’t sure I should condone such an admission but her smiling face told me to let it go and I wondered if drinking vodka and dancing for several nights on the trot would do the same for me.

  ‘I’ve brought your stuff.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘But I’ve got to hurry or I’m going to be late. Obviously I’m going to need a key – where’s Lucy?’

  ‘She and Robin have gone to a drinks party.’ She carefully applied mascara to her upper lashes.

  ‘And you’re seeing them there?’

  ‘Oh no, I’m going somewhere different and I’ve got Sophia’s key, she’s still away. Luce and I don’t always do the same thing so I need it.’

  ‘Oh. OK. Leave it under a pot for me?’

  ‘In London?’

  We exchanged a worried look.

  ‘Yes, but don’t tell Lucy.’ We exchanged another guilty, complicit one and I opened the door and located a handy geranium.

  ‘Except I’m bound to be later than you,’ she said, frowning, as I shut the door, ‘so why don’t you take it? We’ll probably end up at a house party.’

  ‘We?’

  She slipped the key from her jeans and I pocketed it gratefully.

  She coloured. ‘Oh, just this guy I’ve met. Friend of Lucy’s.’

  ‘Oh good, darling. Good.’

  ‘Easy, Mother. I’m going for drinks. Not marrying him.’

  ‘And he’s taking you out to dinner?’

  ‘No, we’re going to this bar.’

  ‘And does he have a name?’

  ‘Sadly not, his parents forgot.’ She gave me a bolshie grin. ‘And yes, I am still in love with Ted so don’t get any big ideas.’

  ‘Has he been in touch?’

  I joined her standing on the sofa and began dabbing my face with yet more powder to soak up the shine so that I began to resemble a French courtesan.

  ‘Yeah, a bit.’ She lowered her mascara brush and picked at her nail varnish. Her mouth drooped. Why had I asked that? Why?

  ‘Minna, shall I take it all off and start again? The make-up?’ She peered, brightening as I knew she would, at being style-counselled.

  ‘I would,’ she said firmly. ‘You’ve obviously been slathering it on and it’s gone a bit gloopy.’

  This had me speeding to the bathroom in seconds flat, whipping a towel around my head and washing vigorously. By the time I’d reapplied the works, I was seriously late. Shouting a last goodbye to Minna, who’d disappeared into the bedroom to change into something I’d brought her, I grabbed my handbag and fled. I tottered down the road in heels, hoping, praying for a taxi. For once, God was in his heaven and a black cab rolled up right beside me just as I’d swung around to look.

  ‘Where to, luv?’

  Felix had been at the restaurant for literally ten minutes, he assured me, as I hastened to take the seat beside him at the zinc bar of some super-cool, buzzing Chelsea restaurant. It only took me two attempts to achieve the high bar stool and he shot out a hand to ensure I didn’t tumble off the other side as it spun but, other than that, it was seamless.

  ‘You look lovely,’ he told me, resuming his seat, having dismounted to softly kiss my cheek when I’d arrived which had caused an electric current to fizz through me. Only one kiss, which I always felt was far more intimate than two.

  ‘I took the liberty of ordering some champagne, is that OK?’

  ‘How lovely. Yes, please.’ I raised the glass he’d already poured me greedily to my lips. ‘What are we celebrating?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. I just thought …’

  Calm down, Molly. Just calm down. This is how urbane, sophisticated people behave of a Tuesday night in SW3. Do get a grip and try to behave as if you’re awash with Bolli at home and you’ve been to a sushi bar before, which, I had a feeling, this was.

  ‘Are you a fan of these fishy crustaceans?’

  ‘Love fish.’

  ‘Excellent, I assumed you would be since you didn’t demur at my choice of eatery. I’ve ordered twelve.’

  To my horror, a vast platter of oysters appeared in their shells from beneath the zinc bar in front of us with a murmured ‘bon appétit’ from the smouldering garçon. Not a sushi bar at all, an oyster bar. Yuck.

  I composed myself and there was a bit of preliminary chat about our respective weeks, his far more exciting than mine, and then I asked after his father, watching, mesmerized, as he expertly squeezed a dash of lemon then Tabasco on to a wobbling, translucent … glob … and popped it in his mouth.

  ‘He’s not so good, I’m afraid,’ he said sadly when he’d rolled it around enough and swallowed. ‘He’s back in bed this week. The emphysema’s flared up again. Camilla’s being a brick, though, she’s stayed on to look after him.’

  ‘Oh. Poor chap.’ I tentatively picked up a shell. Only once. In France. Not a huge success.

  ‘He insists on getting dressed, and she finds him sitting on a chair beside his bed, fully clothed. He’s better lying down. It makes him cough to sit up. With a bit of gentle persuasion sh
e gets him back in his pyjamas and into bed again.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ I put my shell down.

  ‘I can’t really pay her, but she says it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘So sweet.’

  ‘I know. Dad adores her. He’ll miss her. Anyway. Hey ho.’ He rallied, straightening up on his stool and popping another oyster. ‘The decorators are coming next week and I’ve got grand plans for his new accommodation. I’ve decided to shift my studio to the top floor and move him downstairs, which will suit him better.’

  ‘Golly. What an upheaval. All those easels, paints …’

  ‘Oh, it’s not too bad. Don’t forget, I don’t do much of that stuff. And to be honest, I don’t think it will be for long.’

  ‘You mean …’

  He shrugged. ‘Who knows. The doctors say they’re surprised he’s still with us.’

  I nodded. Thought of him being helped by Camilla from his chair back to his bed. His marital bed, really. Of twenty-odd years.

  A hand covered mine. ‘Molly, I am absolutely not trying to make you feel guilty in any way; in fact I was determined not to mention it, it’s just you brought it up.’ Felix’s eyes were soft and kind. ‘It’s already arranged. I felt so bad about what I can see amounted to emotional blackmail last time we met and I don’t want a repeat of that. It’s all organized. He’s moving in with me in two weeks’ time.’

  ‘Right. But no Camilla.’

  ‘No, it’s too far. You see, she lives in Chiswick. But I’ll find someone else. He’ll be fine, don’t worry.’

  ‘And you’ll have to walk through your aged father’s apartment to get up to your studio as will all your clients …’ I shook my head. ‘No, Felix. I’ve got it all organized. I’ve been thinking about this. In fact I’ve already decided. I’m going to use the money from the farm to buy a small flat near Lucy’s and your father can rent the house for as long as he – well. As long as he needs it.’

  He smiled. ‘Molly, you have no idea what the rental on a house like that would be. He couldn’t possibly—’