Louise and Miriam exchanged a look of instantaneous, shared irritation, turned without another word, and marched shoulder to shoulder back into the kitchen.
‘I want to say something,’ Toby insisted.
‘Much better not,’ Andrew advised softly from his place at the Aga where he was watching a saucepan. ‘Keep mum and it’ll all blow over and we can have our tea in a bit of peace.’
Toby shot him a brief annoyed look and addressed the women. ‘You can’t go off and talk about this as if I weren’t here,’ he said. ‘These are my relationships you are discussing. I insist on being part of the discussion. I have a contribution to make.’
Andrew shook his head at the folly of the man. ‘Contributed plenty already, I’d have thought.’
‘I enjoyed the friendship there was between the three of us,’ Toby persisted. ‘It seemed indivisible to me. I never had any sense of it being wrong. We know from other cultures that many units are made up of a man and two women. I think we intuitively adopted a lifestyle which was honest and appropriate and right for all of us. Polygamy is an honourable tradition and one in which the women are close and supportive; it’s a feminist tradition.’
‘Oh, really!’ Miriam said irritably.
‘Oh, Toby!’ Louise said reproachfully. She could remember only too well the perverse delight of guilt and fear of being caught.
Andrew drained the potatoes and reached into a drawer for a large wooden masher. He set the saucepan noisily on the table and started mashing with enormous amounts of butter, salt, pepper and creamy milk. Toby eyed these preparations with some disdain. They had not eaten real butter in his house for something like eight years, or full-fat milk, or even real salt.
‘That’s all in the past,’ Toby said, swiftly overriding the women’s protest. ‘What we need to think about is the future. Louise can’t go rushing into an unsuitable marriage on the rebound. Miriam, you can’t go dashing off like this. We’ve been a unit, us three, for nearly ten years, we have to work this through together. There can be no partings without a full mutual consent. We have worked at loving each other. We have to work through our goodbyes.’
‘But I don’t want to work it through with you,’ Louise said in a strangled voice. ‘I’ve changed. I’ve changed towards you. It’s over, Toby.’
Miriam grinned cruelly. ‘And neither do I.’
‘I was ready for this change,’ Toby swiftly changed tack. ‘I knew my relationship with you was waning, Louise. I don’t think it has been right for us for some time.’ He ignored her gasp of shock and turned to Miriam. ‘I think we’ve been through some kind of cycle,’ he said gently and persuasively. ‘A cycle of distance and other distractions. I think what we should do now is concentrate on each other, and work towards becoming more intimate. I want to give our relationship and our marriage another try, I want you to be the centre of my life.’
‘No.’
‘You’re upset now,’ Toby said understandingly. ‘But I’ll leave you on your own for this weekend. You think it over.’ He smiled at her, his roguish charming smile. ‘I’ve been fooling around, Miriam, I don’t deny it. But we’re right for each other. We were when we first met. We are still. You know we are.’
Miriam stared at the table and would not look at him.
‘I’ll go now,’ Toby said. ‘I want to give you your own space, Miriam. I want to give you a chance to think things through.’ He prompted Louise with a nod. ‘Talk it over with Louise, she knows how strong our marriage is, and she’s made her own decision to move on into the future. She knows we need to be alone together now.’ He glared balefully at her. ‘Louise has made a choice which leaves us alone together for the first time ever. I am sure she recognises her responsibility for making sure this works for us, at last.’
Louise glanced away.
‘I am counting on you, Louise,’ Toby said ominously. ‘You have been so central to my marriage with Miriam, all these years. I am counting on you now to make the ending of this cycle work for all of us. I know you would not simply walk out and leave your friends, your best friends, to pick up the pieces.’ His glance flickered towards Andrew, who was intent on his mashed potatoes. ‘Whatever your decision about your future life, you owe us your support.’
He stepped towards the door. Neither woman said anything. Miriam was struggling with a sense of duty and obligation. Louise was completely persuaded that it had all been her fault and that with her out of the way, Miriam and Toby would be free to love each other fully. Andrew Miles was watching him with respect bordering on awe, the potato masher poised in mid-air above the creamy peaks of potato.
‘Oh! Just one thing,’ Toby added with complete casualness at the door. ‘I think there’s been some kind of muddle about the bank accounts.’
Miriam turned her face to him with a look of utter innocence.
‘My account’s been debited,’ Toby said. ‘Did you take my money by accident?’
‘No,’ Miriam replied. ‘Of course not.’
‘It’s been taken out on my cash card,’ Toby said. ‘And my cash card’s gone from my desk at home. And nobody knows my pin number except you.’
Miriam rose to her feet, outraged. ‘Are you accusing me of theft?’
‘No! No!’ Toby retreated quickly. ‘Just some kind of muddle or some kind of emergency. I thought with the women’s centre in trouble, or with you planning to leave you might have … well, I assumed you had … well, anyway, Miriam, the money’s missing. I’ve got no more than a fiver to last me for the whole of next month.’
Miriam gave a cry of outrage and rummaged in her handbag and dragged out her wallet. She took all the notes inside and pushed them into Toby’s hand. ‘There’s a hundred quid, give or take,’ she cried, choking with rage. ‘And that’s the last you’ll ever have from me. Of course I wouldn’t touch your pathetic salary, I’d rather starve than live off you. And of course I won’t be coming home to you. You’re an adulterous cheat and a liar and I hope whoever has your credit card takes you for every penny you have.’ She pushed him for emphasis in the chest and then finally spun him by the shoulders and thrust him out of the door and slammed it behind him.
‘And don’t come back!’ she yelled. ‘I don’t want you! Louise doesn’t want you!’
‘Nor me,’ Andrew said softly and helpfully. ‘I don’t want him either. Not even in a frock.’
Brownie the collie dog, unaccustomed to marital rows, jumped out of the basket and gave Toby an admonitory nip on the ankles to move him along. They heard his yelp of pain and fear and his feet scurrying to the outer door, and then they heard it bang, and he was gone.
Miriam leaned back against the door. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ she said, suddenly deflated. ‘Andrew, I am so sorry. You wanted a quiet weekend with Louise and here I am with all this mess.’
Andrew waved the potato masher agreeably at her. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said pleasantly. ‘I wanted to meet Louise’s friends. And we don’t get a lot of entertainment in the country.’
Saturday
LOUISE AND MIRIAM stayed up late talking. Andrew went to bed at eleven, apologising: ‘I have to get up early for the pigs.’ When Louise crept in beside him at two in the morning he greeted her at once with a sleepy hug and then wrapped his heavy limbs around her until he had her enmeshed in his body. Louise let him enfold her with a sense of complete bliss and slept with a smile on her face.
At five in the morning, wrapped in a thick woollen dressing gown over his nakedness, he woke her with a cup of tea. Louise, after only three hours’ sleep, gazed groggily out of the window to where the sun was burning the white mist off the meadows and the pale backs of the Charolais cows were a white archipelago in a sea of cream.
‘Whatever time is it?’
‘Half eight,’ he said comfortably. ‘Here, have some tea.’
Louise took the proffered cup and drank it gratefully. ‘I feel very sleepy,’ she said.
‘Why don’t you go back to sleep?’ he offered
generously. ‘I’ll do the animals. No need for you to wake.’
Louise snuggled back against the pillows and held her arms out to him. ‘Do all farmers’ wives get spoiled like this?’ she asked.
‘All of them,’ he assured her. ‘It’s well known. A scandal in the agribusiness. Are you awake enough for a little, very gentle, cuddle?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Louise assured him. ‘I’m quite awake enough for that.’
Andrew dropped the dressing gown to the floor and slid into the warm bed to kiss her collarbones with particular attention and then the long smooth line of her neck while Louise closed her eyes and let Andrew and the early morning sunlight play on her skin with equal warm tenderness.
It was only when he had left her and she heard him singing tunefully in the shower that she glanced at the bedside clock and saw that it said, not half past eight at all, but a quarter to six. Louise closed her eyes firmly without any sense of guilt and went back to sleep.
She woke for the second time when it was truly quarter to nine and she could smell frying bacon and hear a gentle clatter from the kitchen. Andrew padded up the wooden stairs in his woollen socks and put his head around the bedroom door. ‘Breakfast in bed?’ he asked. ‘Or will milady get up now?’
‘I had the strangest dream,’ Louise said. ‘I dreamed that you woke me up at the crack of dawn and tried to pretend that it was nearly nine.’
Andrew looked at her seriously. ‘How odd,’ he said. ‘But where d’you want your bacon sandwich?’
‘I’ll come down,’ Louise said.
The three of them, Andrew, Louise and Miriam, ate breakfast and drank tea. Andrew’s telephone rang intermittently through the meal and he answered it between mouthfuls.
‘I thought rural life was supposed to be so peaceful?’ Miriam asked.
‘This is the party organiser, Stephen Flood,’ Andrew said. ‘I’d better go down to the village and see if there’s any way round the roadblocks. They’ve got the village cut off but there’s a back lane which could be open. I’ll take the mobile phone.’
‘What time are they due?’
‘The crew are due about eleven, and the lads are coming up from the village about midday. The guests will turn up as and when they can get through the police blocks, I suppose. Nothing starts until dusk, about eight anyway.’
‘Do you call them guests?’ Miriam wondered.
‘They’re invited, aren’t they?’ Andrew asked with simple logic. He pocketed his mobile phone, kissed Louise on the top of her head. ‘If anyone turns up while I’m gone, call me and let me know. They can start setting up in the lower meadow, you know the one. And they can run power lines from the barn.’
‘All right,’ Louise said. ‘But what if Captain Frome comes, or the police?’
Andrew smiled at her and stepped into his boots at the scullery door. ‘Tell them they need to have a warrant to come on to my land,’ he said. ‘If they don’t have a warrant they have to wait outside the yard gate.’
He grinned and went out. They heard him whistle to his dog and then the rattling roar of the Land-Rover engine. Miriam widened her eyes at Louise over the top of her cup of tea. ‘He’s awfully sure of himself,’ she said. ‘He’s an awfully –’ she paused ‘– definite man. I suppose you are doing the right thing? It’s not just rebound from Toby?’
Louise swelled a little with pure female pride. ‘Yes, he is awfully sure of himself,’ she said. ‘And I don’t see why not. It’s his farm, he works it, there’s no reason in the world he shouldn’t be sure of himself.’
‘He’s just not much like the other men you’ve been around with,’ Miriam said cautiously. ‘He’s not exactly a New Man, is he?’
Louise shook her head. ‘Thank God for that,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t want a macho idiot, of course not. But he is blissfully straightforward, Miriam. He says what he wants and he does what he wants and you know where you are with him, and he never thinks about whether he’s looking good, or politically correct, or anything.’
‘But what happens if he wants one thing and you want another?’ Miriam asked. ‘What happens then?’
Louise shrugged. ‘We fight it out,’ she said simply. ‘I’ve had a taste of that already.’
Miriam’s eyes widened. ‘You don’t think that he might be violent, do you?’ she asked. ‘If you think that at all, Louise, you must not get involved with him.’
Louise chuckled richly. ‘I absolutely know that he’d never hurt me,’ she said certainly. ‘And I shall have to learn not to murder him.’
Andrew stopped at Louise’s cottage on his way down the hill and walked through the orchard to Rose’s van. The piles of newspaper and books had grown higher around the wheels, and swathes of bright fabric were now draped over the bonnet.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Tidying out,’ Rose replied. She had a large box of photographs in her arms. She thrust them towards him. ‘Here, you can have these. There’s some old ones of the family. Your Mum, and your grandparents. They’re labelled on the back. I don’t want them any more.’
Andrew received them reluctantly. ‘Are you ill?’ he asked. Rose was so pale her skin had a yellowish tinge to it, and she looked thinner. She leaned against the doorframe as if she were too tired to stand upright.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m old. There is a difference.’
‘Why don’t you come up to the farm?’ Andrew asked. ‘I could tow the van up, you could park it in the yard. You could eat with us, you could sleep in the spare room.’
She shook her head. Her hand at her side felt that the hard lump had grown a little bigger. She cupped it tenderly, hidden from sight beneath a violent green smock top. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Houses don’t suit me any more. You’re a good lad, Andrew. You understand. I want to be here. I chose to be here. And I’ve got my own way.’
He nodded. ‘Telephone me if you change your mind, or if you need help. You’ll know how to get into the house, I suppose?’
She nodded. ‘She keeps a spare key taped under the windowsill. But I’ve not taken anything.’
‘Go in and phone me if you feel ill or if you want me.’
She gave him a little push. ‘Get away with you,’ she said. ‘With your illness and your needs. I’m not ill and I don’t need anything. All I want is a bit of peace and quiet and to get on with my own business.’
Andrew nodded. He turned and went to the pile of broken wood that had been the hurdle gate. He gathered two armfuls and threw them down at the van steps. Rose nodded, but would not thank him.
‘You know where to find me,’ Andrew said shortly. ‘And you know I’d rather have you up at the farm.’
‘I know.’
He leaned forward and put his arm around her in a sudden, surprising hug. He felt the thinness of her old bones, as delicate as a sparrow, and the lightness of her body. Rose relaxed in his embrace and when he let her go he saw she was smiling. ‘So you’re happy,’ she stated.
‘Yes.’
‘She likes the farm, she likes the house?’
‘She likes it all.’
‘Will you marry?’
‘As soon as we can. Three weeks.’
Rose nodded. ‘I knew it was right,’ she said. ‘I’m glad I was here to see it.’
‘And help it on the way a bit?’ Andrew suggested.
‘A bit.’
‘I could have got rid of that Toby on my own,’ Andrew said defensively. ‘There was no need to do whatever you did to him.’
Rose shrugged. ‘Just a bit of fun.’ Her wrinkled old face puckered into a grin. ‘Oh, a lot of fun.’ She thrust her hand into a big patch pocket on her scarlet-and-black striped skirt. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘You’d better give him this. It doesn’t work any more.’
Into Andrew’s hand she thrust Toby’s cashpoint card. Andrew took it and looked at Rose.
‘You stole this off him?’
‘I borrowed it,’ she said. ‘I had some debts to settle. I wanted to st
raighten things out. Old debts that needed clearing.’
‘How much money did you steal from him?’
‘I didn’t take any money from him,’ she said. ‘I took it from the bank, same as he did. All I took from him was the card. But it doesn’t work any more.’
‘It doesn’t work any more because you were taking money out of his account with the bank and now you’ve taken all his money,’ Andrew said crossly. ‘And now he thinks his wife took it, and she’s leaving him.’
Rose laughed, a thin guiltless cackle. ‘He won’t forget me, will he?’ she demanded. ‘You’d better give it him back, tell him it wasn’t that wife of his. Lord! What fools men are!’
‘That is one way of looking at it,’ Andrew said. ‘Is all the money gone?’
She nodded. ‘I needed it all,’ she said. ‘He has my newspaper clippings box. It’s not my fault if he doesn’t know what to do with it. He’s still getting it cheap.’
‘He may not think so,’ Andrew maintained. ‘You’ve shamed him before his mistress and separated him from his wife and stolen all his money. He may think that he’s paid a rather high price for collaborating with you on a book.’
Rose giggled. ‘I suppose so.’
‘I’ll look in on you tomorrow,’ Andrew said. ‘Got enough firewood? Food? Water? I suppose you can always light your stove with ten-pound notes.’
‘I’m all right.’
‘Will you come up to the party?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m busy,’ she said. ‘Tidying. Don’t come tomorrow until midday. But come then.’
‘All right,’ Andrew said. ‘I’ll see you at midday tomorrow.’
‘Don’t be late,’ she insisted.
Andrew shot her a suspicious look. ‘Are you up to something?’
Rose shook her head. ‘I’ll have a little job for you that wants doing tomorrow,’ she said. ‘At midday prompt. That’s all.’ She leaned forward from the top step and patted his cheek with a gentle hand. ‘You’re a good lad, I’ve always had a soft spot for you,’ she said tenderly. ‘Goodbye.’
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