“And you know where the cottage is?” I asked pleasantly.
“Just down this lane, apparently. Then left down a track.”
“There’s a track!” cried Rufus, and Alex obediently swung the wheel and we lurched through a gap in the hedgerow. Rufus took off his seat belt and leaned forward excitedly between us.
“And there’s the house, look!” He pointed as, sure enough, after we’d rattled over a couple of cattle grids and snaked down a chalky zigzag track, it came into view. A tiny whitewashed cottage with a grey slate roof crouching, or perhaps cringing, in the fold of some hills, which rose up to the woods beyond. The cottage was flanked by a small square yard, a barn full of hay, and acres and acres of wide open space.
“Looks like a farm,” Rufus commented excitedly.
“Perhaps it once was,” I agreed. “It’s tiny, though, isn’t it?” I said nervously.
“These cottages can be awfully deceptive,” Alex informed me as we got out. “Perhaps it’s bigger inside.”
It could have been pretty, I decided, as we waded through knee-high grass to get to it, but it had a forlorn, decrepit look: the green paint on the front door was peeling and the windows were equally distressed. The small front garden, such as it was, was just a jumble of nettles and ragwort. My heart sank, knowing I had a husband who would neither notice nor care. The back garden, as I’ve said, was a yard. With a stinking manure heap parked centrally. I swallowed and glanced at Alex, who was standing and nodding appreciatively, hands on hips, eyes narrowed, like a man who’s Come Home. Like a man who’s missed the smell of the new-mown hay and the call of the wood pigeon, but I knew better. Alex’s late father might have called himself a land agent but he was, in fact, an estate agent and the family had lived firmly In Town. The only Pony Club activity Alex had participated in was snogging at dances.
Next to the front garden was a field, which appeared to be inhabited.
“Cows!” yelled Rufus excitedly, running to the fence to see.
“Bulls, actually, darling,” I said, looking at their huge horns with horror. “Rather a lot of them, too. Fancy putting them all together in one field? Surely they’ll fight?”
We regarded the bovine group, who raised their heads and stopped their rhythmic chewing to stare opaquely back.
“Oh, I’m sure they’re friendly,” said Alex jovially, and reached tentatively over the fence to pat one. It mooed loudly and a tongue the size of a salmon enveloped Alex’s hand.
“Christ!” He snatched his hand back. “Tried to bite me!” He looked at me in horror, clutching his fingers.
“And sheep! Look at all the sheep!” Rufus was running to an adjacent field and jumping on the fence in excitement.
“You can get a terrible disease from sheep,” Alex said as we followed nervously at a distance. “Eddie told me.”
“Eddie,” I scoffed. “What does he know about sheep? And as Hannah pointed out, you do actually have to fondle them to get it. Have to get really quite intimate, and with the best will in the world I don’t think there’s any danger of—RUFUS, DON’T TOUCH THEM!”
“Look, Mum, little lambs!”
“Yes, but you mustn’t touch!” I rather bravely scaled the fence to rescue my son from the jaws of a tiny white lamb. “Not without gloves. Now come on, let’s go and see the cottage.”
Alex had already deserted the bucolic scene for the relative safety of the front doorstep. “I’ve found the pot, but there’s no key,” he informed us, lifting a dirty terracotta pot gingerly in his fingertips like exhibit A. A couple of beetles scuttled to safety.
“Perhaps she meant round the back.”
We traipsed round to another peeling green door, but there wasn’t even a pot by this one. Just that manure heap. Alex frowned.
“Right. Well, I suppose we’ll have to go up to the house. She must have forgotten.”
“Completely forgotten,” I squealed, barely disguising the note of triumph in my voice.
As we made for the car, though, a cry went up behind us.
“Mum, I’m in! The window was open.”
We swung round and, sure enough, Rufus was hanging out of a downstairs window, grinning from ear to ear.
“Oh, well done, darling!”
We hastened back, full of renewed optimism as he ran to open the door. The optimism was short-lived, however, as we found ourselves stepping into what was indeed, a very deceptive cottage. It was even smaller than it looked from the outside. There was a tiny sitting room—or parlour, perhaps, since there was definitely a Dickensian feel to all this—an even smaller everything-else-room with a table and four chairs, a cupboard-sized kitchen, and upstairs, two bedrooms and a bathroom you surely wouldn’t want to linger in on account of the distressed sanitary ware. I looked at the cracked basin in dismay. Everything, from the banisters, to the sticks of rudimentary furniture, to the window ledges, I discovered, running my finger along them, was covered in a thick layer of dust. I set my mouth firmly and came back downstairs. I’ve often thought that a child’s presence can have a very civilising effect and this was one of those moments. Rather than reaching for the nearest chair and hurling it at him, I merely flashed my husband a look that went beyond hatred and hissed, “Marvellous. Absolutely marvellous.”
“Well, it’s certainly got potential,” he was saying foolishly, jangling coins in his trouser pocket as he bent to peer out of the sitting-room window. “Terrific views too.”
I treated both these comments with the contempt they deserved and swept past him to the kitchen.
“I know we’re not parting with much money here, Alex, but common courtesy dictates that you at least sweep the kitchen floor or put some milk in the fridge. Look at this!” I threw open a cupboard and something grey and furry fled. We shrieked and clutched each other.
“You said it would be habitable,” I breathed. “If I’d known it was going to be like this I’d have come down last week and sorted it out!”
The fact was I’d meant to, I really had, but packing up in London had taken every spare moment of my time and actually, every ounce of emotion.
“Cold Comfort Farm,” I seethed, opening one filthy cupboard after another and slamming doors shut. “Look at the dirt. Look at it!” I was behaving rather badly now, but even as I stormed around, I knew my anger was misdirected. I couldn’t really give a monkey’s about the size of the rooms or the dust—which, let’s face it, in a place this size wouldn’t take long to shift. What was depressing me, what was really depressing me, was that it was glaringly apparent that there was nowhere to paint. Three bedrooms. I’d been promised three bedrooms! Could Rufus possibly sleep on a sofa bed downstairs, I wondered feverishly? Or could I paint downstairs and we just wouldn’t have a sitting room? No, of course not, Imogen, don’t be so selfish. No, I thought going through to the sitting room, chewing my thumbnail, no, I’d just have to put my career on hold. Golly, plenty of women did, didn’t they, I thought miserably. And anyway—I went to the window and rubbed the filthy pane with a fingertip—it wasn’t as if I had much of a career to hold in the first place, was it?
“Let’s go and find Eleanor,” said Alex, rubbing his hands together decisively as if that would solve everything. As if a few more rooms and luxury en suite bathrooms would miraculously appear.
“I think perhaps you’re right,” he added cleverly as he ducked under the door frame on the way out. “We should have gone to find her in the first place. Shouldn’t have arrived unannounced.”
I nodded wordlessly, not trusting myself to speak, following him out to the car. And of course, he’d be in London most of the time, I thought as we waded back through the long grass, while Rufus and I were down here. He wouldn’t be back before dark, and then at the weekends he’d no doubt find any excuse to be up at the big house, fishing for trout with Piers, flirting in the kitchen with Eleanor, whilst muggins here set
traps for the mice and got to grips with the rising damp. And actually, that was where he’d seen himself all along, I thought with a sudden flash of realisation. Not in Shepherd’s Cottage at all. Oh, he’d imagined he might sleep here occasionally, partake of the odd breakfast, but most of the time he’d be up there, helping Piers select cigars from the walnut humidor, or fine wines from the cellar, or in the pale yellow drawing room, helpfully pouring pre-lunch gin and tonics for the corporate shooting parties, leaning against the marble mantel, looking gorgeous, being terribly charming, glass in hand…an asset to any house party. Eleanor would introduce him as her oldest friend and everyone would purr and coo and say how lucky she was to have him close by, and the men would find him affable and amusing and the women privately admire his good looks and there’d be much laughter and bonhomie, and then the phone would go and Eleanor would carefully put her hand over the mouthpiece.
“Alex, darling,” she’d make a face, “it’s Imogen. She wants to know if you’re coming back for lunch.”
Alex would sigh and roll his eyes and…oooh! My blood came to such a rolling boil as I slammed the car door shut I thought my head might pop off. I should never have agreed to this, never!
“Where’s Rufus?” said Alex as he got in beside me.
We glanced around as, at that moment, a shriek went up.
“MUMMY!”
We got out as one and dashed back, our tempers forgotten. Together we raced round the side of the house to find Rufus, by the back door, surrounded by a huge posse of aggressive-looking chickens. There must have been at least forty of them. He gazed at us, wide-eyed.
“Every time I move, they move with me!” he shrieked.
“Right,” I breathed, heart pounding. “Don’t panic. What we’ll do is—oh!”
In another moment they’d left Rufus and rushed to surround me, attaching themselves firmly to my legs, pushing and clucking menacingly. I clutched a drainpipe and nearly fainted with fear.
Rufus ran to his father and hid behind him.
“Move slowly,” commanded my husband from behind the safety of the dustbin lid he’d commandeered as a shield. “Don’t make any sudden movements!”
I half shut my eyes and gingerly took a step, but they swarmed with me, cackling horribly.
“H-e-lp!” I whimpered, feeling like Tippi Hedren in The Birds. “Help me!”
“Wait there,” cried Alex. “We’ll get the car.” Still brandishing the dustbin lid, they raced off, whilst I, petrified, stood rooted to the spot, glancing down at the sea of feathers, beaks and beady eyes that surrounded me. Oh dear God, there were hundreds of them, hundreds, and actually—I gazed in terror—these weren’t chickens at all! Chickens were brown and smooth and comforting, but these were strange fluffy creatures with furry heads and very sharp, curved beaks. Were they wild, I wondered? Had I stumbled across some rare and prehistoric breed? Some hawk with spiky hair? The last of the Mohawkans?
Moments later the car roared round the side of the cottage and through the open yard gate, screeching to a halt in a cloud of dust and chicken shit. The door flew open like something out of The Sweeney.
“Come on!” yelled Alex in seventies cop mode. “Run for it!”
“Run, Mummy!” urged Rufus.
I shut my eyes, summoned up every ounce of courage—and legged it, half expecting to hear brittle bones and webbed feet snapping beneath my kitten heels, but beyond caring. The birds ran with me, stretching out their necks and running with wide-apart legs under their feathered skirts, like fat ladies running for a bus. But I was faster. I threw myself in the car, heart pounding, and slammed the door shut, wondering if I’d decapitated anything. Alex performed a dizzy-making handbrake turn and we flew off.
We didn’t speak for a few moments.
“This isn’t going to work,” I finally gasped when I’d checked for headless chickens. “This isn’t going to work at all!”
Alex patted my knee. “Nonsense,” he soothed, “it’ll be fine. It’ll all work out, you’ll see. Come on, we’ll go up to the house the back way.”
The back way? I swung round, confused as we went past the cottage and plunged further down the track. His local knowledge was clearly more intimate than mine, which only added to my irritation.
“How come you know this way?” I snapped, still trying to get my breath. “I thought you hadn’t been to the cottage before?”
“Oh, I remember now, we came down here when I was shooting with Piers in the autumn. The second drive was down this way. It’s where I shot that partridge. You couldn’t come, remember?”
Oh, yes, that weekend. The shooting party. The one I’d dreaded, but had been absolutely determined to go to, come hell or high water, but not, as it turned out, a high temperature. Rufus had got chicken pox the day before, so after weeks of quizzing Kate on shooting etiquette and raiding her country wardrobe and spending a small fortune on a hat in Lock’s, which she’d convinced me would be an investment, I’d fallen at the last hurdle and had to watch Alex drive off on his own, a vision in Lovat green. Well, there’d be plenty more of those weekends, I thought grimly as we drew up at Stockley’s back door. Plenty more opportunities to wear the bloody hat. I say “back door,” but most people would be overjoyed to have it at the front: it was large, black and heavy with lots of brass knobs on, and ranged about it were Wellington boots in all colours and sizes, evidence of generations of Latimers traipsing through.
“Hi there!” sang out Alex, pushing on through, and of course he was right. Good friends shouldn’t go to the front, ringing bells and making the dogs bark and giving their friends the added nuisance of walking ten minutes from the west wing, only to find the door’s warped through lack of use and yelling, “Go round the back!” to the pesky visitors, but nevertheless, I envied him his confidence. I followed him down the flagstoned back passage and the dogs came wagging and pushing their noses into my crutch, but other than that, there were precious few signs of life.
“He-lloo!” yodelled Alex again, sticking his head round the kitchen door. It was the sort of kitchen I’d dreamed about in my shallower moments. Huge, high-ceilinged and baronial, with the ubiquitous Aga at one end and an open fireplace at the other, over which a stag’s head presided, complete with a cigarette stuck in its mouth in a we-may-be-grand-but-gosh-we-can-laugh-at-ourselves sort of way. In front of the fire stood two high-backed armchairs, for all the world like his and hers thrones, and in a corner, a faded squashy sofa where the dogs hopped back to now to curl up and resume their slumber. Along one wall was an ancient oak dresser dripping with willow-pattern plates, and by the French windows, a long oak refectory table adorned with artfully arranged terracotta pots. Kate would have passed out with jealousy. Having recently seen my new kitchen, I wanted to torch it.
“No one about,” commented Alex needlessly. “Tell you what, I’ll head down to the front hall and you check out the playroom.”
The playroom was about three rooms further back on the left; past the butler’s pantry and the gun room, deep in the bowels of the intimate family side. I opened my mouth to protest that I’d quite like to stick together and not be discovered snooping round Eleanor’s house on my own, but Rufus, at the mention of a playroom, had already zoomed off, tail up, sniffing for toys. I sighed and made to follow him, as Alex turned and walked, quite quickly as I recall, in the opposite direction, towards the green baize door and the more formal side of the house. Before he reached the door, however, we heard shouts coming from that direction, but from upstairs. Voices raised in anger. I turned back in surprise, as Alex’s step quickened and he disappeared. I made to follow him, clipclopping down the flagstones in my heels, pushing through the baize door, from where I was afforded a view of the main front hall, dark, echoing and oak panelled with a sweeping Jacobean staircase. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I was just in time to see Eleanor run lightly down the stairs, barefoot in jeans and a wh
ite T-shirt, her face stained with tears, and fly into Alex’s arms as he stood at the bottom.
“Oh, Alex darling,” she cried in a choked little voice, “thank God you’ve come. Thank God!”
Chapter Eight
Don’t ask me what possessed me to give them a moment. To stand there in the gloom where I knew they couldn’t see me, and watch as his arms encircled her waist and his fair head bent over her dark one. I think the answer is that I just froze. Alex thought I’d gone after Rufus to the playroom; Eleanor didn’t know I was there. They perceived themselves to be entirely and exquisitely alone. As she lifted her face to his, though, I felt scared. Lost my bottle. I didn’t want to know what came next. I turned and exited quietly back via the green baize door, then barged back through it again, noisily, giving a loud, enigmatic cough. The two of them sprang apart like deflecting magnets.
“Imogen!” Eleanor regarded me in horror, wiping her wet face with the back of her hand. “Oh—I thought…” She glanced up at Alex in confusion. “I thought you’d come alone.”
This struck me as a remarkably obtuse thing to say. What, alone already? Just like that? Without giving it a couple of months, say, to rent us asunder?
“Why?” I didn’t recognise my voice. It was harsh, rasping.
“Well, you’re not due till tomorrow so I assumed Alex had just popped down to look at the cottage, get the lie of the land.” She’d recovered her composure now and was gazing at me wide-eyed. “But no—no, that’s fine. If you’ve both come to look, that’s marvellous. It’s just I haven’t had a chance to get in there yet, and it’s filthy, I’m afraid, so—”
“Tomorrow?” Alex interrupted, surprised. “That’s when you expected us?”
“Yes, the twenty-fifth.”
“That’s right—Sunday. Look, it’s in my diary.” I rummaged in my bag, still smarting, but determined she wouldn’t get the better of me on this one. I drew it out. “Here, Sunday, to Stockley.” I pointed to where I’d written.
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