About Last Night . . .

by Catherine Alliott

  A pause. ‘Nutty.’

  ‘Oh! Yes. Fine. He’s doing well. Had a drink and a poo, according to Minna.’

  ‘Excellent. That’s exactly what we need, some movement. Listen, I won’t come then, if that’s the case.’ I could have kicked myself. ‘Pete Bradman’s got a rare breed calving at Longmeadow, it’s one of his Shropshire Show girls. He’s in a bit of a state, I ought to hold his hand.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ I tried to keep the crushing disappointment from my voice. I licked my lips. ‘It was only a tiny one.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘The poo.’

  Another pause. ‘OK. But he’s had a bowel movement, that’s the important thing.’

  ‘Yup.’ I took a brave deep breath. ‘So … maybe tomorrow?’

  ‘Maybe, but if he’s had a good night, you won’t need me. It’ll only add to your bill.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I see. Although … I’d quite like to be reassured.’ I shut my eyes.

  ‘Oh well, if I can, I’ll pop in at the end of my rounds. Say about eight.’

  ‘OK, great,’ I breathed again. Like a teenager, with a date. ‘Thanks, Paddy.’

  I pocketed my phone, horribly disappointed. I gazed at the damp patch on the wall for a long time. Suddenly I had a thought. A rogue one. I crept upstairs to Nico’s room, following the rhythm, which wasn’t hard. The door was pulsating to the monotonous, thumping beat within. I knocked, but no one heard me, so I opened the door on the ghastly, smoke-filled, hormone-infested den. I didn’t go inside, just put my head round the door. They were both sitting on the bed smoking, iPhones in hands. Nico looked horrified to see me. I ignored him.

  ‘Jake – turn that thing down please, Nico.’ I waited until Nico had obliged, looking incensed. ‘Jake, I’m sorry to hear your dad’s rare breed is in trouble.’

  Jake gazed at me, uncomprehending, his habitual charm and manners for once deserting him.

  ‘The one he won Gold with at the Shropshire Show? She’s calving?’ I said.

  His eyes registered and he cleared his throat politely. ‘She was, but she had it two weeks ago. Landed it safe and sound.’

  I stared. ‘Ah. Right. Good.’

  Nico made the face of his tribe. The incredulous, screwed-up one that said he was frankly appalled, ashamed and furious. I shut the door. Stood a moment on the threshold as the thumping resumed. Right. Pure fiction. Complete and utter fabrication. To get back to his romantic lair. To make the evening last a little longer. And to deflect me. Feeling even sicker, I tottered into my bedroom on wedges I wouldn’t usually wear at home and certainly not with jeans. I kicked them off, tore off the oatmeal affair which was deeply irritating because it caught on everything, and took everything else off. I went into my bathroom and ran a bath with very pursed lips, catching my reflection in the mirror above it. I looked very old. And because I was bending to turn the taps, very saggy. When I got into bed, I didn’t sleep for ages. I stared wide-eyed into the night, feeling very alone.

  The following day, Lucy and Robin drove off to Robin’s parents in Wiltshire to spread the good news. We waved them goodbye with smiles and kisses and many hugs and good wishes to his parents. They sailed away in his silver convertible, the wind in Lucy’s blonde hair. Minna, having satisfied herself that Nutty was indeed on the mend, went to Ted’s house to have lunch with his family, who, it transpired, she’d never met before, whilst Nico and Jake set off for a few days’ camping, drinking, head-banging and what-have-you, in Anglesey. The gnomic Derek joined them, having shuffled from his cottage across the fields. They dripped out of the house trailing bedding, booze, the contents of my larder, and a strange girl I’d never seen before with the unlikely name of Fuzzy.

  ‘Mum, have we got a tent?’ They were literally packing their stuff in the boot of the car. Literally about to leave.

  I remembered to count to ten before I spoke. ‘What about the one Granny and Grandpa brought back? I thought Granny mended it?’

  ‘Derek took it to Dale last week. It got nicked.’

  Derek shrugged as if this were the tragic, occupational hazard of a festival-goer.

  ‘Then no, we no longer have a tent. Why don’t you get one from Derek’s house?’ I asked sweetly.

  Derek looked alarmed. ‘We don’t have that type of thing.’

  ‘Neither do we now, Derek. Jake?’

  Jake smiled brightly. ‘Yes, Molly?’

  ‘Tent?’

  ‘Fresh out, sadly.’

  ‘Fuzzy?’

  Fuzzy jumped, her heavily made-up eyes boggling, as if no one had ever asked her a civil question in her life.

  ‘Wha’?’ She looked terrified.

  ‘Do you, by any chance, have a tent?’

  ‘Nah,’ she managed eventually, shaking her peroxide head vehemently.

  ‘Right. Well, it looks as if you’re spending a night under the stars.’

  They all looked horrified, and it occurred to me that not one of their mothers gave a monkey’s, but they’d assumed I’d fix it, because I always did, and I’d be uneasy if I didn’t. My blood boiled as I whipped out my phone. I rang Tia, who couldn’t oblige, then Anna, who agreed she had a four-man, and that they could pick it up on the way, as long as they promised to return it.

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ said Nico, relieved.

  ‘You don’t bloody deserve it,’ I told him. ‘And if you don’t drop it off on the way back, I will actually take your gun and shoot you through the kneecaps.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said giving me an impish grin and a rather endearing squeeze of the shoulders. And actually, I knew he would return it, because Anna’s husband, Jim, was quite scary. Something I clearly wasn’t, from Derek’s point of view. They piled into the car and spluttered out of the yard, bumper hanging off and wobbling. Another fox shot, I thought, watching them go. No problem too big. Just as long as it’s not mine.

  So that just left me. I went to see Nutty, who was looking much perkier. He gave me a friendly nudge with his mealy nose. I gave him another of his little-but-often sloppy feeds and went inside. Then I rang Peter and asked about the sale of the house, hoping he’d say it was all off. It wasn’t. It was very much all on. The vendors were still frightfully keen, he said, and all being well, he reckoned I’d be exchanging next week, and quite possibly out in a couple of months. Did I have anywhere to live? he enquired.

  ‘No! Not yet,’ I said, panic rising inside me like a high-speed elevator. It went all the way to the top. ‘It’s been a bit – convoluted, the house in London.’ God, the house in London. It seemed like a million years and a million miles away: totally out of my sphere of orbit. And my comfort zone, too, I thought with a frisson of fear as I put the phone down. Who was that ambitious woman with plans to sail confidently off to Harvey Nichols to purchase her Armani, then away to Ottathingy for lunch, before bridge parties with her pencil-thin, manicured, new best friends? What was wrong with my old ones? Would the new ones produce a tent at a moment’s notice? I thought not. I thanked Peter tremulously then put down the phone.

  Swallowing hard to stop the fear rising further, I took a pony halter from the hook behind the door and whistled to the dogs. The cat followed too, and out we went, across to the paddock and beyond. I folded my arms tightly against my chest in defence, holding myself together like a cracked old vase, hoping I wouldn’t fall apart. As I went, I tried not to notice the shimmer of the rain which had fallen in the night and was cupped in the eyes of the ox-eye daisies. Or the way the stream glistened in the valley, the water so clear I could see every pebble on the bed as I went over the stepping stones to get Tufty. He came up to me with a whicker of pleasure and I stroked his dear old white nose and put his halter on. As I led him back towards the stream I tried not to remember the picnics the children and I had had down here, in the early days, in the immediate aftermath of David’s death. When I was trying very hard to make their lives as normal as possible, to be a great team – team was a word I used a lot in those days – and when
Minna and Nico at least had believed in us as a slightly diminished family, even though Lucy had taken some coaxing.

  I stood for a moment, on the brink of the stream, succumbing to the memories. I half shut my eyes and remembered the quad bike they’d roared around on so dangerously down here, me shrieking from a bedroom window for them to slow down. The cows who’d got bored and escaped as cows did, we learned, and who we used to meet in the lane, coming back on the school run. The children in hysterics, me frantic, as I stopped the car and we chased after them. The joy of all the chicken hatches at Easter in the barn, before the fox invariably got them all in the autumn. How we’d gradually got used to that. The way nature was: its peaks and troughs. But peaks, mostly, it seemed to me now, looking back as I obviously was, with slightly rose-tinted nostalgic spectacles. What was I doing? What was I doing, I thought, in a moment of genuine horror, as Tufty, bored now with standing still, embarked on wading across the stream, the dogs swimming beside him. The cat and I used the stepping stones and I held the end of Tufty’s rope. Back in the yard, I popped him in the stable beside Nutty, who whinnied in delight. Then I turned and walked quickly across to the house, tears filling my eyes.

  That evening, I knew he wouldn’t come, so I didn’t even bother. In fact I deliberately didn’t put on a scrap of make-up and was back in my usual uniform of ill-fitting but comfy jeans and a well-worn sweater. Almost in defiance, really. It made me feel better, if no one else. I put a pan of water on to boil for some pasta so I’d get really fat and made a comforting cheesy sauce. Then I turned the television on to Made in Chelsea, which Minna watched avidly and I pretended to be above but was secretly fascinated by, and sat down as I waited for the water to boil. The front doorbell rang. Well, it wouldn’t be Paddy, because he always came round the back. But when I went to answer it, there he was. Paddy Campbell. In a jacket and pressed shirt and those chinos again. I looked him up and down.

  ‘Going out?’

  ‘Hopefully,’ he grinned.

  ‘Oh. Right. So … you popped round to see how Nutty was on the way? Is that it? Is she in the car?’ I peered around him. Couldn’t see.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Claudia.’

  He laughed. ‘Oh, no. She’s not. Can I come in?’

  Confused, I stood back. He strode past me, still grinning. I shut the front door and followed him through to the sitting room. He flopped down in an armchair, making himself very much at home. I stood over him. He looked around.

  ‘You’ve tidied up.’

  ‘It happens, occasionally.’

  He nodded. There was a pause before he spoke. ‘You fell for that, then.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The Claudia ruse. Actually, I knew you did, it was pretty to watch. Quite made my week.’ I stared. ‘Well, it was kind of payback time. You’d strung me along for so long.’

  I crossed the room and perched on a sofa arm opposite, lost. ‘Paddy … what are you saying …?’

  ‘Oh, she was a willing accomplice. Claudia. Thought it was a hoot. Likes you very much, by the way.’

  I felt my mouth hang open. ‘Are you saying … you set me up? Deliberately?’

  ‘I believe I am.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  He shrugged. ‘Up to you.’

  ‘But that’s … that’s so duplicitous!’

  Another shrug. ‘Needs must. And I needed to. Quite hard to make you jealous in Herefordshire. Who should I take to the Pig and Whistle? Wendy Higgington? Tia?’

  ‘Tia’s lovely,’ I said defensively, but automatically, my mind was whirring furiously elsewhere.

  ‘She is. She’s also married. Everyone’s married.’

  ‘Except us.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I lurched away from that, not meaning it to sound the way it had emerged. Went back to Claudia. ‘But … you held hands, at dinner,’ I whispered, leaning forward incredulously. ‘I saw you.’

  ‘Yes, I asked her to. Whispered in her ear that I very badly needed to make you jealous. Said that I’d tried everything else, and nothing had worked. We thought it worked a treat. You looked mighty distracted as you talked to Dad and Willem.’

  ‘You bastard.’ I stared, amazed. Licked my lips. Shook my head. ‘The constant texting …’

  ‘At the café? To Poppy. Trying to keep on top of things while I was away. She’s frightfully young to be holding the fort. And then obviously I told you I was staying in London but got the next train down, the one after you.’

  ‘But …’ I shook my bewildered head again. ‘Oh my God, so elaborate! Your mother! Saying she’d always liked Claudia, was so pleased to see you together again!’ My heart was pounding in my ribcage.

  He frowned. ‘I doubt she’d say that. Or if she did, she’d mean as friends. No, no, Mum wasn’t in on it. She was totally baffled when I took off back here, straight after you. But she does like Claudia, and hoped we’d be friends again one day. In fact she’d already had Clauds and Alberto round the week before, for drinks.’

  ‘A-Alberto?’

  ‘Her boyfriend. Fiancé, actually, they’re getting married in September. He’s a polo player. Argentinian. Couldn’t come to our dinner, because he was playing a match in Brazil. Nice chap.’

  Paddy’s eyes were steady and watchful now: not so jocular.

  I licked my lips which were extraordinarily dry. My head was trying to assimilate all this. ‘Paddy, are you saying you concocted this whole elaborate charade over the last few days, just to make me jealous?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t that elaborate. Just a few tiny white lies. And it was extremely interesting actually. I must do it more often. As an anthropological experiment it was fascinating.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. It’s so unlike you.’

  He swallowed. ‘No, you’re right. I hated it, if I’m honest.’

  ‘No, but I don’t believe …’ I didn’t know what I believed. There was a silence. We stared at one another. It was so unlike him. He blinked first.

  ‘Molly, I’m sorry,’ he said abruptly, his face changing. It collapsed slightly. No longer remotely jocular or confident. ‘I knew of no other way.’ He got to his feet and walked to the window, his back to me. He thrust his hands in his pockets. ‘And if you feel hoodwinked, or betrayed, I totally accept that it was bad form. I was joking about it being interesting. I didn’t actually enjoy any of it.’

  I stared at his back a long moment. At the blue linen, slightly creased from sitting in the car.

  ‘But the thing is—’ He turned, hesitated. ‘The thing is, I did it because I wanted you to want me. Really want me. I could tell you were more interested, that the wind was turning, but I didn’t want to be second, third or even fourth fiddle. Didn’t want to be the backstop as in – oh well, my husband’s dead, the Frenchman would never have worked out and Felix turned out to be a shit, but hey, there’s always Paddy. I wanted you to want me like I’ve wanted you. For so long.’ He looked down at the floor. When he eventually spoke his voice was quiet. ‘I’m ashamed to say, I wanted it to hurt.’

  I breathed in sharply at that. At length I spoke. ‘It hurt,’ I whispered.

  He glanced up, hopeful. He looked like a boy suddenly. In that moment, I got a glimpse of a younger, more vulnerable man, not the proud, irascible Paddy Campbell I knew.

  ‘Oh Paddy.’ It escaped from me involuntarily, but it was full of everything I meant.

  His face altered at my tone. He read my expression in an instant, and in another, his face cleared completely. He held out his arms and I walked into them. We held on tight. I could feel his heart pounding under his jacket and I’m quite sure he could feel mine too. The television was still blaring, but not as loudly as the pasta water, which could be heard boiling over, sizzling madly all over the hob in the kitchen. He released me and I fled to take it off the boil. I gave myself a moment in there in the kitchen to steady myself, hanging on to the Rayburn rail, but
it didn’t do any good. Every pulse was racing and my cheeks were burning, I knew.

  When I came back he’d found the remote and snapped off the television, which was just as well, because as I’d left, Lucinda was telling Anton exactly why she’d slept with so many men. Paddy still had the slightly unsure look of a much younger, more insecure man. I loved him for it. For being reasonably certain he was home and dry, but still not entirely confident. And of course this sudden change of situation was very new to us. We’d had such a volatile relationship up to now.

  ‘I booked that table again,’ he told me, summoning up a flashing grin. ‘The one at the Fox and Hounds.’ He shrugged: suddenly looked a bit worried. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have. Perhaps it was a bad omen. You know, our last disastrous non-event.’

  ‘Oh no!’ I reassured him. ‘I love the Fox and Hounds! Give me two minutes, literally, two minutes!’ I beamed at him and actually thought my face would crack in half.

  I raced upstairs in a blur: threw off my clothes and tossed them on the floor. Then I washed under my pits, blasted on some deodorant, threw on the skinny jeans and the oatmeal affair and the wedges and slapped on a bit of make-up. I barely looked in the mirror actually. I ran downstairs and followed him out through the front door, almost at a trot, to the car. Before you could say keen as mustard, I was in the passenger seat beside him. Not the red pickup truck, you understand, a proper car. A nice little low-slung affair with no roof, and although obviously I didn’t look like Lucy, I didn’t look like Mr Pritchard either. We beamed at one another under the inky night sky, the outside lights illuminating our faces. It looked very much as if his face might crack too.

  Off we roared, the wind, for once, in my hair. And not to a little Italian tucked away down a side street in Ludlow where no one would see us – no, we were going to the pub. To the local. Where half the village went. As we sailed confidently into the car park, the Hobsons and the Burdetts were just getting out of their cars, greeting each other, no doubt bound for a couples supper. This was very high stakes, I realized, as they turned, seeing us drive in. I wondered if Paddy had wanted that – wanted it to be all around the valley in moments. Maybe he did, because when he’d parked, and just before we got out of the car, he did a very un-Paddy like thing. He leaned across and took me in his arms and kissed me, really rather comprehensively, on the lips. As he finally ran out of steam and released me, his breath as he held me close racing in my ear, mine no doubt in his – we weren’t sixteen, after all – I knew there was no going back. And not just because the Hobsons and the Burdetts were nudging each other, bug-eyed, as they went into the pub, or because Bob Harris, as he came out of the public bar having downed his habitual two pints, was rooted to the spot, eyes on stalks. No. I knew there was no going back because for once, both my head and my heart were in accord, and they both said yes.