‘Positive. This is much the quickest way to Top Common. Here, swing a left here through this gate, then go right along the track. Oh, and have a swig of this.’ She produced a hip-flask from her pocket whilst attempting to light a cigarette with the other. The flame jiggled as we rattled along.
‘I won’t, thanks,’ I told her. ‘Not actually while I’m driving. Might have a swig when we stop, though.’
‘It’s the only bit of hunting I can participate in,’ she said, knocking it back. ‘And you can bet your life they’re all quaffing away from their stirrup cups. Giles usually comes back pissed as a fart. Oh look, there they are!’
Sure enough, up on the brow of the hill in the distance, the hunt came into view. The hounds were streaking out of a covert baying loudly, and then the rest of the field followed, galloping at full tilt, riders crouched forward in their black and pink coats, in stark relief against the emerald green of the meadow.
‘Quite a sight,’ I said, shading my eyes with my hand.
‘They’re heading up towards Bellingdon End now. Come on, across here. I’m pretty sure this is Ed and Sophie Carter’s land, they won’t mind.’
She pointed me through an open gate and we roared across the field, bouncing over ruts and flying through ditches, Laura spilling ash and sloe gin with every bounce.
‘Bit different to London life, eh Henny?’ she bawled above the engine noise.
I grinned. ‘I’ll say.’
She shifted around in her seat to face me. ‘So what exactly are you doing up there? I mean, apart from work?’
I took a deep breath. Stared straight ahead. ‘Actually, I met up with an old boyfriend,’ I said brazenly. At that moment we lurched out of the field and hit tarmac, swinging sharply round into the lane. Laura righted herself as she fell against the door, then clutched my arm, her eyes huge. ‘No! God, how exciting! And?’
‘And … well. You know – just lunch, that kind of thing,’ I said lamely.
‘Just lunch? Blimey, I haven’t had lunch with a man who wasn’t my husband since about 1982.’
I blushed, slightly less brazen now. She gazed delightedly at my pink cheeks.
‘Ooh, and you still fancy him!’ she squealed. ‘Henny, how thrilling! Does he make your heart beat faster as you gaze across the table at him? I know if I had lunch with a certain Paddy McAllen of the Fourth Seventh Dragoon Guards I’d go weak at the knees, be chewing the table leg! Should have married him, of course.’
I glanced at her quickly. ‘Really?’
‘Well,’ she considered this. ‘Maybe not. He was a bit of a shit. Led me a very merry dance. But if his name crops up at a dinner party I still blush like mad and drop my napkin on the floor to give my face time to cool down as I eyeball the carpet. Giles thinks it’s hysterical. Hang a right here, Henny.’
I felt her eyes on me as I swung the wheel around and we dived down a woodland track. If the pack were headed for Bellingdon End, they’d come through here. We found a clearing a bit further along and parked. When we’d got out and were leaning on the bonnet, Laura passed me the hip-flask.
‘Just lunch?’ she probed lightly.
I hesitated. ‘Well, obviously we had to walk it off. Had to take a walk in the park.’ I smiled.
She stared. ‘Well, well,’ she said softly. ‘You sly old dog.’
We were silent a moment. The wind rustled the leaves in the trees above us.
‘Be careful though, won’t you, my friend?’ she said eventually. ‘Got a lot to lose.’
I narrowed my eyes into the beechwood. ‘Have I?’ I said quietly. ‘Not sure I haven’t lost it already. And anyway, what’s sauce for the goose and all that …’
She gave me a puzzled look, but at that moment, heralded by haunting cries, the hounds appeared from nowhere – masses of them, in fact, howling and scrabbling and sniffing frantically around the very clearing we were in.
‘They’ve lost the scent,’ said an old boy, running up on foot with his terrier on a lead.
‘Obviously,’ agreed Laura as we backed nervously into the bushes.
A moment later, the rest of the field appeared on horseback. As they cantered up looking none too pleased and gathered to stand for a breather, the horses stamping and snorting, I was relieved to spot Lily, still on board, right at the back. She didn’t see me, but was looking around anxiously. I waved. Still she didn’t see me. Taking my life in my hands I squeezed bravely through the steaming horseflesh towards her, wincing as I got sweat on my jacket, but I couldn’t get past a huge dun-coloured horse, planted squarely in my way.
‘Whip, please,’ said a curt voice from above. A ruddy-faced man in hunting pink glowered down at me. I gazed up at him, uncomprehending.
‘Sorry?’
‘Whip, please!’ he repeated, more urgently this time.
I glanced around. Everyone was watching me. Did he want me to whip him?
‘WHIP, PLEASE!’ he roared, making me jump. Heavens. Was this a peculiar hunting custom? I hesitated, then tentatively took his whip from his hand, and gave him a little tap on the leg.
‘There.’ I smiled and handed it back.
He stared down at me, horrified. Then, kicking his horse, he barged past me, jolly nearly knocking me over.
‘Well!’ I gasped, staggering to stay upright. Laura pulled me back roughly into the bushes.
‘ “Whip, please,” means get out of the way, the Whipperin’s coming,’ she hissed, as sure enough, a man in a mustard coat on a vast black horse shot by at a gallop. He surely would have mown me down. Flattened me.
As I got my breath back, a cry went up behind us. Then a hunting horn sounded, and suddenly – the whole field was away again, careering off, it seemed, from a standstill. Perdita was in the lead, I noticed, bottom raised provocatively – very taut, very sexy. She smiled down as she cantered past. I glared back.
‘Come on, we’ve done our bit,’ said Laura, hastening back to the car. ‘Molly and Lily have seen us now, so we can just pretend we saw the rest of it. Pretend we were out for hours. Anyway, I’ve got a leg wax booked in half an hour.’
We piled back in, and she didn’t question me further. I knew I’d said too much, though. Gone too far. But I’d wanted her to know. Wanted her to know that I wasn’t the long-suffering wife, the last to hear about her adulterous husband and the village tart; that I already knew. And I wasn’t stupid, either. Much as I liked Laura, I knew she was a terrific gossip and that she’d be straight on the phone to Eleanor Strang after her leg wax.
‘Eleanor, you’ll never guess …’
‘What?’
‘Well, you know Henny Levin has been staying in London …’
Good. Good, I thought firmly as we drove back down the lanes, both deep in thought. I wanted them to know. Wanted them to know that if they’d spent the last few months – no, six months, if it had started at the Hunt Ball – feeling sorry for me – ‘Poor Henny, how ghastly’ – they needn’t. Because I had a life of my own. A love of my own. And not just a quick legover in a crummy flint cottage, either. No, I had the real thing. The love of a man who didn’t just fancy me, didn’t just lust after me, but worshipped the ground I jolly well –
‘Henny, look out!’
THWACK!!
I hadn’t, though. Hadn’t looked out. And as I screeched to a halt, I knew I’d hit something. Something brown and fast-moving that had shot out from nowhere, right in front of me.
‘Shit!’ I gasped as we both lurched towards the wind-screen, then back into our seats. ‘What was that?’
But Laura was already out of the car, running round the back. I got out shakily and went to join her. She was standing in the middle of the road, her hands shooting up through her hair. She gazed down in horror.
‘Oh Christ, Henny,’ she breathed. ‘It’s the fox. You’ve hit the bloody fox!’
Chapter Twenty-two
‘Oh my Christ.’ I scurried, horrified, across the tarmac to where she was standing. Sure enough, a large
furry creature lay motionless in the middle of the road, eyes shut, mouth gaping, tail spread out in a russet fan behind. My hands shot to my mouth.
‘Oh, how awful. I feel dreadful!’
‘Well don’t, it’s called pest control. Only I’m not convinced it’s quite the control those guys had in mind.’ She glanced nervously over her shoulder as, far away in the distance, we heard the sound of horns and baying hounds getting closer.
‘Shit – the hunt!’ I squeaked. ‘What’ll they say?’
‘Well, they won’t be too thrilled at having their sport curtailed so abruptly, I can tell you. I think they’d rather planned on making a day of it.’
I gazed at her as it dawned. ‘Oh my God,’ I breathed. ‘Marcus will kill me.’
She shot me a look as if to say, ‘What, more than he would if he knew the sport you were having in London?’ Then swung around as a horn sounded again.
‘Yes, well they’re sodding well coming now, Henny, and they’ll have our guts for garters!’
She shaded her eyes into the distance, as on the brow of the hill, lolloping hounds were followed by streaming pink and black coats, galloping out of a copse into view.
They were still a good half-mile away from us, but getting closer all the time. Even at this distance, I could make out Marcus, up in his stirrups on Fabrice, and Lily close behind him.
‘Oh Lord.’ I began to tremble. ‘The hounds are on the scent. They’ll be down here soon. What’ll we do?’
‘Get back in the car,’ Laura said in panic. ‘We’ll just drive on.’
‘Don’t be silly, Marcus will have seen it’s us!’ I swung back to look. ‘There aren’t many purple Discoverys in Flaxton, for God’s sake, we can’t just drive off and leave it! Can’t we hide the body? Chuck it in a ditch and cover it with leaves?’ I looked around desperately for a handy ditch and some spare leaves.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, the hounds will find it in seconds, and then everyone will know we did a hit and run. Our names will be mud in the village. No. I know.’ Her eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘We’ll take it with us. Got a dog blanket?’
I stared. ‘What?’
But she’d already flung open the back of the jeep and was dragging Dilly’s blanket out.
‘Here, take one end and slide it under him.’
I gazed down aghast. ‘Oh yuk!’
‘Come on, Henny. They’re getting closer, and if they find us we’ll be lynched. Probably on the village green!’
This terrifying image, complete with Marcus and Lily in the front row, arms folded, eyebrows raised accusingly, seemed to galvanize me, and I flew to Laura’s side. Together we slid the blanket under the very large, very hairy, very dead fox.
‘And then take two corners each,’ Laura panted as I tried not breathe in the horrific stench which was filtering up my nose, ‘…and lift …like a hammock …’
‘He’s enormous!’ I gasped, staggering under the weight.
‘Full of my chickens, no doubt. Hope he hasn’t got rabies.’
I nearly dropped my corners. ‘Shit!’
‘Not in this country, Henny, now come on! They’re nearly here!’
Sure enough, over the brow of the hill, the hunt, in full flight, was galloping towards us, full pelt down the valley, hounds to the fore, but closely followed by Perdita and the field.
‘Won’t they wonder what we’re doing?’ I trembled as we hurried the body to the car.
‘They won’t know at this distance,’ she panted. ‘They’ll just see the car. If they ask, we’ll say we had to stop so you could be sick.’
‘Why me?’ I yelped, as with a mammoth effort, we heaved the smelly bundle into the jeep, although actually, I paused to clutch my mouth as the stench rocketed up my nose, I might just heave at any moment.
‘Because you hit the bloody thing, now come on!’
We ran around, jumped back in and lurched off down the road, just as the hounds jumped the gate two fields away. By the time they’d jumped the next hedge into the lane and reached the extremely smelly patch where the fox had lain, we were out of sight and around the next bend. Unfortunately for us, so was a tractor – going very slowly, at about five miles an hour, its trailer rattling, laden with bales of hay. It stopped at a five-bar gate to turn in.
The farmer got out of his cab, waved an apology, and with all the time in the world, went to fumble with the padlock.
Laura and I sat there, frozen in horror, staring straight ahead, not speaking, barely breathing in fact, as behind us, back around the bend, we heard the sound of hounds howling, no doubt circling in confusion as they came to a complete standstill in the road. Presumably, though, they wouldn’t stay there for long. Presumably, soon, they’d pick a route. I gripped the wheel, shut my eyes tight, and prayed. Dear Lord, please please don’t let them pick ours. Please! Sadly though, my prayer fell on deaf ears, and moments later, we heard the sound of hammering hooves behind us.
Oh fucky fuck.
Eyes still tightly shut, I slid down in my seat and prepared to die. Prepared to be stranded there, with no possible means of escape, as the hounds, catching a whiff of the fox, surrounded the car, leaped up at the windows, and howled to be let in. It would be like that Stephen King movie where that poor woman spent the entire film locked in a car with a mad dog – Cujo, or something – going berserk outside, except it wouldn’t just be one dog, there’d be hundreds of them: swarming like locusts, baying for our blood, and riders too, all bending down and peering in – Marcus’s face, Perdita’s – all wondering what on earth was going on and why the hounds were so interested in our car and, actually, what on earth that mound was under the blanket …with the red tail sticking out …
‘Oh thank Christ!’ Laura squealed.
I snapped my eyes open as the tractor disappeared through the gate. Dry-mouthed and badly in need of the lavatory I plunged into first and roared off with a screech of tyres, just as a pair of mustard-coated hunt servants appeared at a smart trot at my window, hounds at their heels. We raced up the lane in silence, not daring to speak until we’d reached the junction with the main road which led back to the village.
‘For a moment there I thought we’d had it!’ croaked Laura. She reached for her hip-flask and knocked it back. I nearly snatched it from her hand as she passed it to me. Held it to greedy lips.
‘Me too. Thought our number was up.’ My voice was trembling. ‘Thought any minute now they’d be pounding round that bend …’
‘Giles, pink with fury …’
‘Marcus, absolutely livid …’
‘And imagine the girls!’ Laura squeaked, as we got faintly giggly now, hurtling down the road, passing the flask to each other, high on our narrow escape. ‘Molly and Lily! God, they’d never speak to us again. We’d be on tack-cleaning duty for months. Imagine the shame we’d heap on our families. Caught in the act! Off to dump the body in the nearest lake! I take it that’s where we’re going, incidentally?’
‘Haven’t the faintest idea. D’you think that’s best?’
‘Definitely. Go left here, it’s quicker. And we’ll weigh it down. Put stones in the blanket and tie it up. Don’t want him coming back to haunt us, appearing in the stream in the village, a bit of Dilly’s blanket stuck to his tail, paw pointing accusingly. God, it would be like something out of Midsomer Murders – left, I said, Henny!’
But I’d skidded to a halt on the open road, white-faced and speechless because, on preparing to take the aforementioned left turn I had, like any good motorist, glanced in my rearview mirror. Only to see, sitting up very straight in the back, and looking me right in the eye – Monsieur Reynard, with a small cut on his forehead. I couldn’t speak. Just …couldn’t speak. Pointed mutely over my shoulder. Laura turned to look. She screeched in terror, and in seconds flat we were out of that car.
‘Open the boot, open the boot!’ I gibbered, as we both ran away as one, up the verge towards London which, with hindsight, of course we should never have left.
<
br /> ‘No fear!’ she shrieked. ‘What if it bites!’
By now though we’d stopped and turned back, clutching each other on the roadside, staring in frozen terror at the car.
‘You go,’ she breathed.
‘No, you.’
Happily though, neither of us had to as, moments later, the fox, having calmly negotiated the dog guard between the boot and the seats – a mere trifle to a professional chicken-house breaker – and pausing only to give us a look of withering magnitude, slipped, like a streak of red, out of the open passenger door, through the hedgerow, and away across a field of stubble.
Laura and I watched in stunned silence, still holding onto each other, as he disappeared.
‘Bloody hell,’ she murmured at length.
‘Bloody bloody hell,’ I agreed.
‘Not dead.’
‘No, not dead. Just stunned.’
Laura reached into her pink jacket. Between us, we silently drained her hip-flask before tottering back to the car on jelly legs.
We drove on for a bit in silence.
‘Well, I think we made it much more sporting, actually,’ Laura declared finally, tucking her blonde hair decisively behind her ear. ‘The pack were far too close. We just gave it a sporting chance.’
‘Absolutely,’ I agreed staunchly as we purred back towards the village. ‘And he did look terribly old. Infirm, even. All we did was behave like caring citizens. Gave him a lift.’
‘Exactly.’ Her mouth twitched. ‘Into the next county,’ she snorted.
We were still giggling uncontrollably, shaking with laughter in fact, as I dropped her off at her leg wax appointment a few minutes later.
‘Oh God,’ she gasped, wiping tears from her face as she stumbled weakly from the car. ‘I haven’t enjoyed a day out in the country so much for ages. We must do this more often, Henny, you’re a tonic. A real tonic. I’ll bring more gin next time, though.’
‘Good idea!’ I agreed.
I waved goodbye, and feeling rather light-headed now, weaved slowly back to the farm. Every so often I sniggered, in a rather pissed fashion, into the steering-wheel.
Marcus, of course, couldn’t see it in quite the same humorous light. He strode back in a few hours later, all booted and spurred and soaking wet after a fall in a river – looking nothing, I promise you, like Mr Darcy in that wet-shirt moment – and flung himself into the Windsor chair by the Aga.
Not That Kind of Girl Page 31