‘I hear the pasta is sublime. And the candlelight so flattering. Coffee might be less ambitious, though.’
I felt a frisson of excitement. ‘I can’t, Ludo,’ I said softly, slapping paint generously onto the crumbling wooden slats in an attempt to hold the thing together and avoid buying a new one. ‘I can’t sit having coffee with you in some dark little corner of a cosy tea shop. What if someone saw us?’
‘Well, then we’re having a cup of coffee,’ he said gently. Much lip-moistening at my end. ‘Or a walk?’ he suggested.
‘What, with the dogs?’ I enquired brightly. ‘It went so well last time, didn’t it?’
‘Definitely without the dogs,’ he said hurriedly.
It had been tried before, to disastrous effect. Ludo had brought Flossie, Eliza’s precious cocker spaniel, and I’d stupidly brought both Maud and Doug, leaving Diblet behind. I should have left Maud, too; without her I might have coped better with Doug, but hindsight is a marvellous thing. We’d set off across the buttercup-strewn fields, Ludo and I, whilst the children were at school, Sebastian at the pub and Ottoline away, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for the gardener and his client to be dog-walking, but my heart was racing madly. In the event, everyone had behaved badly. Maud, a rescue mongrel who’s needy at the best of times – she sits on your foot when you’re watching television and if you ignore her she jumps on your lap, and if you ignore her still she trembles violently and looks as if she’s going to pass out – was suspicious of Flossie, this rather glossy interloper, from the outset. After ten minutes, she decided she’d had enough. She sat down and refused to go any further, so that I had to carry her to prevent her going home and barking noisily to be let back into the empty farm, thereby alerting the whole village.
Doug, meanwhile, enchanted by the glamorous Flossie, was showing off horribly. A puppy of Diblet’s, Doug had been A Mistake. Years ago Diblet had shagged an Airedale bitch at Longhorn Manor, mid croquet lawn, and mid smart luncheon on terrace. Celia had run from the lunch table screaming, shooing him away with her napkin, whilst her father, the Brigadier, had roared and gone purple, but, too late, the damage had been done. A terrific row had ensued with Celia shrieking down the telephone that Savannah was a show dog, worth a fortune, and any puppies would be worth a fortune too. Sebastian, with a straight face, had calmly told her that we waived any stud fee. ‘Not if they’re your dog’s they won’t be!’ she’d spluttered back. Savannah had eventually had four puppies and I’d felt honour-bound to take one. I’d picked the one most like Diblet, except with corrugated Airedale hair like Douglas Hurd, hence Douglas, which we’d hoped would encourage him to be urbane and diplomatic, in an Our Man At Netherby Farm sort of way. Obviousy he wasn’t. Indeed, within weeks, it became clear that Douglas was a Doug, if not a Dug. Adorable and outrageous he might be, but he was also feral and untrainable and spent all day chasing squirrels, rabbits, his tail, the postman, cats – anything with a pulse. Naturally we had him neutered but the vet said at the time, looking a bit sheepish, that he’d never come across anything quite like Doug before – ‘And the operation might not have been, ahem, an unqualified success. Bring him back if you’re unsure.’ He’d closed the surgery door quickly. He’d looked so traumatized – Doug and the vet – that I was loath to put either of them through that again, so I’d hoped for the best and ignored the signs. Of which there were many. Doug wasn’t remotely interested in Maud when she came into season – but then hardly any dogs were, poor Maud – but then there had been the strange case of the Labrador bitch’s puppies at Honeysuckle Cottage. With the Douglas Hurd curls. Then the Norfolk Terrier bitch’s puppies at Burston Farm with – happily only to Sebastian and me – that distinctive, mad, rolling eye.
On the day of my walk with Ludo, everything became horrifically clear. My arms were aching from carrying Maud, and Ludo tried to take her from me.
‘Here, let me,’ he’d said manfully, taking the bundle.
‘Oh, Ludo, I’m not sure. She doesn’t really do strangers.’
Sure enough, she began to tremble violently, staring up at him with huge terrified eyes.
‘Blimey, is she all right? She looks like I’ve assaulted her.’
‘I think maybe put her down.’
He did, but too close to a puddle for her liking and she yelped as if she’d been kicked.
‘I didn’t touch her!’
‘No, it’s just she doesn’t do puddles, either. She walks round them. I’ll have to dry her feet.’
I did, on my jumper, whilst Ludo made soothing noises, which pleased me. Sebastian would be swearing: Bloody dog! Have you ever seen anything so wet! But consequently we took our eye off the ball, and when we turned it was to see Doug, in a state of ecstasy, humping a rather radiant Flossie in a mulberry bush.
‘Shit!’
I lunged towards them, but it was all over bar the shouting, of which there was a lot from both me and Ludo. And violent tugging too, which apparently you should never do as you can injure the male; but frankly I couldn’t care if I pulled it off, as I told Doug forcibly. Eventually we parted them, Doug looking smug and very much intact thank you very much; Flossie, shameless and thrilled, much as I imagined Eliza might look after a night with Mr Singh. It hadn’t escaped my notice, either, that she’d wiggled her bottom in Doug’s face at the start of the walk.
Ludo and I gazed at one another, terrified.
‘Oh, God. D’you think …’ I breathed.
‘No, it takes ages with dogs. I’m pretty sure they have to stay locked together for hours and hours for it to work.’
‘Still, we should probably get her the morning-after pill?’
‘Is there such a thing?’
‘Of course.’
‘Oh – good plan, then. I’ll go and get it. Except – oh, Christ – Eliza knows the vet! Won’t she put two and two together? If he says something about me coming in for it?’
We regarded one another in terror, our beautiful, sunshiny morning amongst the cowslips and the buttercups disintegrating into dust and ashes as we imagined Eliza, like some avenging fury, hotfooting it straight from the vet’s round to my place.
‘I’ll go,’ I told him. ‘I’ll say it’s for Maud. He won’t know no one fancies her.’
And so we turned and headed for home. Obviously I didn’t have to go instantly to the vet’s, but Doug had cast a shadow over the whole morning. The prospect of Flossie in pup, and a whole load of Douglas Hurds emerging in Eliza’s kitchen, filled us both with horror. We couldn’t rest until the situation had been resolved.
As Doug gambolled happily ahead, Ludo remarked ruefully: ‘I’m not sure Doug getting his leg over was entirely the point of this walk.’
I giggled. ‘No, although he was definitely provoked.’
‘In what way?’
I told him about the bottom-wiggling and Ludo looked defensive. ‘Well, she’s never done that before,’ he said shortly.
We walked on in silence. Our first row, I wondered?
‘At least it’s not me going to get the morning-after pill,’ I told him at length, in a placatory fashion.
‘Oh, quite,’ he said with feeling, paling visibly at the thought. ‘Quite.’
So a walk definitely without the dogs, I thought, paintbrush in hand at the garden fence, mobile still clamped at my neck. But … wouldn’t that look a little odd? We certainly couldn’t go off the beaten track, where bona fide dog walkers might report back that Ludo Pritchard and Ella Montclair had been seen strolling in the wilderness, dogless. But neither, surely, could we walk casually through the village, where who knows who might drive by and think: Why are Ludo Pritchard and Ella Montclair walking shoulder to shoulder, he talking intently, she blushing madly, eyes lowered to her shoes? Body language was a very dangerous thing and impossible to disguise. Even Ottoline had given me an old-fashioned look the other day as I’d returned from the vegetable patch, fingers having been squeezed therein. But the vegetable patch couldn’
t decently be dug and titivated any more. It was becoming tidier than the house. Suspiciously overtended.
‘Possibly a coffee,’ I agreed eventually, faintly, into my mobile. ‘Somewhere very public. So that, if anyone asks, we just – you know. Ran into each other.’
Ludo sighed. ‘Yes, and we could wear badges, perhaps? That read: “Absolutely nothing is going on.” ’
‘It isn’t,’ I said quickly.
‘I know,’ he said sadly, and recently that note of sadness and – no, not reproach … regret, had crept into his voice.
It made me feel … a bit guilty. As if I were leading him up the garden path, both literally and figuratively. After all, I’d been seeing him for ages now. But … what was the alternative? Booking into some ghastly motel in the next county and having a quickie? I shuddered. I just couldn’t. The trouble was, I realized, as I resumed my brushstrokes having agreed to think about it, those sweet, tender moments when our hands brushed inadvertently, or perhaps even advertently, entwined under a coffee-house table, were almost enough for me. It was the intimacy I craved, and the love. The rest I’m sure would be marvellous too, but not the guilt afterwards. It simply wasn’t worth it. Whereas for Ludo, I knew that little by little, as far as he was concerned, without pushing me in the slightest, this was where we were heading, unless he was to go stark-staring mad.
And then what? I put the lid on the tin of paint and pressed it down hard with the heel of my hand. Straightened up and narrowed my eyes into the sun. Then, when it had happened a few more times, would he leave Eliza? Would I leave Sebastian – such as I even had him – and set up home with Ludo, taking the children with me? But they were teenagers now. Might not even want to come. As were Ludo’s girls. So – what, then? Ludo and I on our own? Where? I felt afraid. Neither of us had any money and I certainly wasn’t going anywhere without the children. He was devoted to his girls too – which was probably why I loved him. I couldn’t see him leaving them, either. So. An affair, then. With all the deceit and the guilt that involved. Whilst at the moment, I told myself, I was – almost – in the clear. I’d done nothing wrong. Well, break it off, then, Ella, I told myself angrily. Whatever it is you have here. This … friendship. Never see him again. He’s only a man, for God’s sake. Just a man. I marched back up the garden path, heart pounding.
My route back to the shed where I kept the paint took me past the Granary and after I’d dumped the tin amongst the others, I surreptitiously peered through the side window. At that moment Sebastian emerged via the front door and down the steps, which shook me. He was wearing a tatty checked shirt, jeans, and his feet were bare. So like Josh.
‘What’s this lunch, then?’ he said crossly, but not menacingly.
For a moment I thought he’d said ‘What’s for lunch?’ and lurched back a good few years. Then I realized. He wasn’t too pissed, I decided, and it was after midday.
‘What lunch?’
‘I don’t know. Some email,’ he said, turning and going back inside. ‘Come and see.’
He was making for his ancient computer on the table in the corner. I hesitated. I resisted going into the Granary as much as possible when he was there, getting the children or Ottoline to take the sheets. It was different when he was out, but when he was in situ I respected the privacy that he seemed to want – need. His paintings were stacked all around the walls: old ones I knew intimately, new ones I knew nothing about, all of which stirred so many emotions in me, I found it difficult when we were together.
‘What email?’ I said as evenly as possible, following him in, eyes front.
‘Here.’ He pointed at the screen. ‘From the school. Tabs has forwarded it to me.’
‘Oh.’ I knew what it was. A school event; some sort of fete, just before the beginning of term, because when they’d tried to hold it at the end of last term the heavens had opened and for the next twenty-four hours the rain had reached biblical proportions. They’d had to call it off but, due to popular demand and some particularly pushy parents, it was to be held next week. It was the sort of thing Tabitha was usually dismissive of, would try to wriggle out of, too cool to be manning the tombola, preferring to be in Topshop of a Saturday. But recently she’d expressed a desire not just to attend, but to have us attend together. A show of solidarity, perhaps: both her parents there. I read it and hesitated, wondering how to persuade him, feeling for the best way.
‘Well, I know it’s not your idea of fun on a Saturday morning but we don’t usually go to these things and I think she feels that now she’s getting closer to the top of the school, maybe she ought to go. I also happen to know some of her friends are going so –’
‘Yes, fine,’ he interrupted my gabble impatiently. ‘If she wants, I can come.’
‘Oh, good!’ I purred, delighted. ‘Oh, thank you, Sebastian.’
‘You don’t have to overdo it,’ he snapped. ‘I’m not some absent parent who has to be sobered up and wheeled out for the occasion, rictus grins all round.’
Well, that’s exactly what he was, sometimes, I thought. I remembered one terrible parents’ evening, years ago, at Josh’s school, when he’d actually made the art master cry. The man was famously incompetent and a bully, but Sebastian had the sharpest of tongues. I kept my counsel now, however, not wanting to be on the receiving end of it.
‘Great. Well, I’ll tell her we’ll all go. It’s on Saturday,’ I said.
‘Yes, I can read.’
He flicked off the email. Without meaning to, I looked at his inbox – couldn’t really read it and hadn’t meant to spy, but he’d seen me looking.
‘Paintings are looking good,’ I blurted, to save myself, but stupid Ella, stupid. I knew never to comment on his work, particularly these days, but I’d been tripped into it. I braced myself. Waited, eyes half closed in defence against the scathing wit. The derision. The snarl to mind my own business. None came. When I allowed myself to look at him, it was a strange look I saw in his eye. As if he knew I was steadying myself to be verbally lashed, and was saddened. A mask came up in moments.
‘Crap,’ he said, more typically. ‘All of it. Fucking crap.’ As if to demonstrate, he strode to a portrait of Ottoline on his easel, unscrewed it, and tossed it at me. ‘Here. You have it, if you like it so much.’ He mocked me with his eyes. ‘Add it to your collection.’
I hated our exchanges like this. This would rock me for the rest of the day, I thought as I went out, leaving the picture where it had fallen, face up on the floor, feeling his eyes in my back. This would make me shaky until bedtime, then unable to sleep, and then it would take two or three days to recover. Literally. That’s why I resisted coming in here.
Mouth dry, I went back to the house and made myself a coffee with two spoonfuls of sugar. I knew what I really wanted was a drink, but I wouldn’t have one yet. As the kettle boiled, I texted Ludo.
Yes, you’re on. See you at the Copper Kettle tomorrow at eleven.
Then I picked up my coffee, went upstairs, and settled myself at my desk, where I gave Dylan spectacular acne, Leanne an overbite, and Leanne’s mum, Arlene, love handles.
I put my pencil down an hour or so later, unable to draw any more hideousness. I felt a bit sick. Instead, and without thinking, I got up and went to the huge cupboard at the back of the room. I lifted the broken floorboard at its base, fished for the key, and opened it. The vast array of stacked canvases within stared back at me. Facing me was the one I loved best: a seascape of Sebastian’s with bobbing boats and flapping sails, the light catching the water. It used to hang in the sitting room, but when Sebastian couldn’t bear to look at it and threatened to burn it, even though he came into the room only on high days and holidays, I’d smuggled it up here so he couldn’t. I knew exactly where and when he’d painted it: in Italy, on the holiday we’d taken when the children were small, on the cliffs above that little bay around the coast from Portofino. How he’d smiled with delight when it was finished. Happy times. I feasted my eyes a while, breathing
it in. Inhaling its beauty.
The rest of the paintings I didn’t look at. Some were mine, some were his. Some valuable, but not for sale. Yes, I’d sold Girl with an Orange Bow, or rather we had – he’d definitely been consulted – but only because it had been worth the most and meant selling just one. Later Sebastian had snarled that I’d forced him into it and he’d been pissed at the time. He’d said if I wanted to make so free with his work, why didn’t I bloody well have done with it and sell the lot? Never. Not in my lifetime. When we were dead, Josh and Tabitha could do what they liked with them. For now, though, they were entombed up here, in limbo. My guilty pleasures, to gaze upon occasionally, when I felt the need. Felt low enough. And I did today.
Suddenly I started at a noise. I shut the door quickly and turned, pocketing the key, crossing to the window. Not Sebastian, thank God. Even though he wouldn’t have seen me, the thought of him just outside, and me, crouched and looking in that cupboard, made me flush with fear. Instead, I saw my mother, stick thin – thinner than ever, actually – but still very much ramrod straight, in the ubiquitous blue cape, going into her cottage from her car with groceries. I popped the key back under the floorboard, flipped back the rug to cover it and raced downstairs in moments. Picking my way in bare feet across the pot-holed drive, I hastened towards her. She’d been to Waitrose – of course – and was coming back for the last plastic bag in the boot.
‘I’ll get it!’ I called, seizing it and saving her the trip.
‘Oh. Thank you, Ella,’ she said, tight-lipped, as I sailed passed her and into the galley kitchen.
‘Shall I help you put it all away?’ There were a few bags on the floor.
‘No, thank you. I can manage.’
‘Right.’ I turned at her tone. ‘Shall I put the kettle on, then?’
‘No, thank you. I had a coffee in Waitrose.’
Somehow this struck me as profoundly sad. My mother, sitting in an unfamiliar supermarket on her own, knowing she wouldn’t bump into any of her friends, of which she had many in Buckinghamshire. Just whiling away the time. And my mother was a busy person: church-roof committees, bridge fours, lunch parties, choir practices. Her expression didn’t invite sympathy, though. Chin raised, eyes cold, still in her cape, she was clearly waiting for me to go.
My Husband Next Door Page 17