The Country Escape

by Fiona Walker

  For a puzzled moment she thought he was asking, ‘Truth?’ then grasped what he meant and shrugged a reluctant consent, annoyed at being cornered, grateful at least that the music was so loud there was no point in answering. When it was succeeded by Siouxsie and the Banshees’ ‘Dear Prudence’, which was quieter, he tilted his head in front of hers again.

  ‘It really was unforgivable to mob you up like that! Pre-race nerves!’ He apologized with a lot of head-ducking and blue-eyed charm, albeit still shouting as loudly as a father from the touchline. ‘I had no idea we’re neighbours, and I really did mean it when I offered to help! I’m pretty hopeless at most things, but I know my horses and I gather you have a few at the sanctuary.’ He looked at her through his thick lashes and, mistaking Kat’s fixed expression for inability to hear him, shouted even louder directly into her ear, ‘Can we get away from this God-awful racket?’

  Kat tried hard to look offended. ‘I’m enjoying it!’ she insisted stubbornly. ‘It’s a vintage performance.’

  The vintage performance paused as Mags, adopting a throatily intimate microphone rasp that was part Janis Joplin, part Hilary Devey, coaxed, ‘Join me, ladies. Let’s sing along! Here’s one for Prudence…’

  Pru and Cyn, sitting at their usual corner table with the most ancient earthmen, raised their glasses as the younger girls in the room started to serenade them, adding a quick ‘and Cyn’ to the refrain.

  Deciding she’d been unfriendly enough – she hadn’t even looked Dougie in the eye properly yet – Kat turned to him to explain what was going on. ‘They always sing theme tunes for regulars with their names in – Mags started it with her last band. They offered to learn something with “Sin” in the title for Pru’s sister Cyn, but she says that would be unChristian.’

  His eyes didn’t leave her face. ‘What do they play for you?’

  ‘“Lovecats”,’ she scoffed, ‘although “Bitch” might be more fitting.’ She waited for a reaction, but his smile was pasted on like a daytime television interviewer’s. ‘I’m more of a dog person.’

  ‘Me too. Good point. Don’t go away.’ He leaped up, muttered an apologetic oath and abandoned his pint to dash outside.

  ‘What did you say to him?’ One of Russ’s cousins sidled across the gap to reclaim a handbag from behind a cushion.

  ‘That it’s a vintage performance.’ Kat shrugged.

  ‘Pushing it a bit. He was seriously flirting with you.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘Duh? He has a terrible reputation.’ She looked thrilled. ‘You can’t deny he is Sex. On. Legs.’

  Kat thought about the buttocks in the window. ‘I prefer to keep my feet on the ground.’

  ‘In that case, I’m going to redo my face, after which it’s every woman for herself. Prepare to step aside, Kat Mason.’ With a grin, she got up to hurry to the loo, followed by most of the girls at the table, the Eardisford Arms’ ladies’ lavatory being the local unofficial social-media hub in the absence of a phone signal.

  Dougie’s phone was still on the table, Kat noticed – not that it would do him any good around here. She picked it up and examined the custom case, a much-scuffed shell covered with Ds fashioned from bows and arrows.

  ‘It has no reception,’ Dougie told her, as he sat down, slightly out of breath.

  She dropped it hurriedly. ‘Nothing has round here.’

  She wondered what he could have had time to do so urgently outside. He hadn’t been gone long enough to smoke a fag or use the phone-box.

  ‘I was wishing on a star.’ He leaned closer, that husky, drawling voice intimate, but still clearly audible above the band’s rollicking medley finale.

  Caught off-guard, Kat gulped as the blue eyes drank her in and her vital organs did their lurching thing. Without thinking, she brought out the big self-defence smile, a thousand watts of unexpected light blinding him across the table. He looked delighted, smiling right back until Kat’s heart, lungs, liver and kidneys threw themselves into action. Nobody fought back against the Mason smile that fast. She was up against a pro.

  ‘What did you wish for?’ She took the cue a split-second before seeing the trap she’d walked into, his eyes smouldering on hers, the word ‘you’ on his lips.

  Kat watched his mouth form the letter Y as if in slow motion, and – like one of those movies where the woman watches a car crash and shouts, ‘Noooooooo,’ while bits of car and broken glass fly through the air in time delay – she recoiled. In real time, this reaction was the briefest of flinches, lasting barely a millisecond, then rewinding as Dougie hung on Y, failed to add the car crash OU, and instead steered expertly out of the swerve.

  ‘Usefulness,’ he said. ‘I want to be useful, Kat. Use me in any way you need.’

  She regarded him cynically. ‘And you just wished for this usefulness on a star?’

  ‘Aries. The agrarian worker. My sign.’ He pointed up, eyes not leaving hers, playful as a lion cub again now. ‘What’s —’

  ‘Don’t ask what my sign is,’ she interrupted, really wishing he’d lay off the flirtation (and the eye-contact thing, which was pulverizing her innards). But she was quietly impressed he knew his astronomy. For all his star-gazing, Russ’s constellation identification started and finished with the Great Bear.

  ‘The sanctuary sounds an extraordinary venture,’ Dougie was saying, edging closer all the time. ‘Constance Mytton-Gough was clearly an amazing visionary and passionate about her horses – my father knew her and Ronnie. I would love to help you out. Looking after it all must be a hell of a burden for someone not used to animals. I gather you’re a city girl. Watford, isn’t it?’

  ‘I live here now. And I’m very used to animals, thanks.’

  ‘Stringhalt aside,’ he teased, eyes now so flirtatious they were almost Eskimo-kissing hers.

  Kat resented his glibness, the confident public-schoolboy charm that insinuated he could blaze in and rescue her with his superior knowledge, the smooth machismo that would make most men come across as smarmy gits, but somehow worked brilliantly for him, as sexy as it was charming. No wonder he was famous for seducing co-stars. The smile was growing wider now, the voice huskier, the eyes hypnotic through their veil of lashes. ‘Tell me what I can help with. Anything. You name it.’

  About to joke that he could lay off the Casanova charm, Kat realized that his offer had its practical uses. She certainly didn’t need rescuing, but she was more than happy to delegate a few unwanted role.

  ‘You can take over the pony ring at the village show, if you like.’ She’d been trying to wriggle out of it for weeks. ‘They’ve asked for rides and then a little gymkhana afterwards.’

  ‘Happy to. I did the Prince Philip Cup as a kid.’

  ‘Isn’t that backpacking around Dartmoor?’

  ‘That’s the Duke of Edinburgh Award.’ He laughed, giving her a see-how-much-you-need-me look. ‘It’s mounted games – racing around on ponies, basically.’

  She felt foolish, sharpening her edge. ‘You’re a stuntman, aren’t you? Maybe you can do a trick-riding display for the village at the show.’

  Just for a moment the big smile wavered. ‘I have no trick-trained horses here.’

  ‘Could you jump off the church tower in a ball of flames instead? It’d be more exciting than the usual morris dancers.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ He brought the flirty eyes into play again. ‘I could shoot a few flaming arrows.’

  ‘Isn’t archery a bit dull?’

  ‘Not the way I do it.’ He moved closer to speak into her ear as the stage shook with Animal Magnetism’s final riffs. ‘Can I help with something more personal? Something closer to your heart?’

  Kat saw Russ watching her from the stage, a huge lumbering badger hitting bum notes amid screeches of feedback, both protective and threatened. She knew she just had to raise a finger for the guitar to be cast aside and the vigilante to attack, her fierce bear of a free-range lover.

  ‘Cricket,’
she said, without really thinking, knowing it was Russ’s greatest passion after music and wildlife, and sometimes more important than both, especially one occasion each year. ‘There’s an annual match at the end of July, estate workers versus villagers. It’s a hugely important event around here, but nobody knows what to do about it this year. The village pitch belongs to the estate, you see. If you can square it for the match to go ahead, and field an estate team, that would be great.’

  ‘I’ll do my best. Anything else I can help you with? Whist drive? Open garden? Climb a mountain? Slay a dragon?’ He angled his face to look at hers, his charm guns blazing, his gaze disconcertingly on her mouth.

  Kat engaged the smile again. He returned fire, but if she concentrated hard she could keep her vital organs in one place. ‘Not unless you’re a mechanic. My car’s got a faulty starter.’

  ‘Ha-ha,’ he said, glancing at the clock above the bar and grimacing. ‘Excuse me.’ He stood up and hurried away.

  Animal Magnetism was finishing its set with a victorious drum roll. The girls were returning from the ladies’ loo, heads swivelling in horror as Dougie vanished through the main door again.

  ‘What did you say to him this time?’ Russ’s cousin slid in beside Kat, her face now painted with huge, soulful, smudgy eyes and bee-stung lips.

  ‘Asked him to fix my car.’ Kat was clapping the band, rolling her fist in the air and whooping loyally.

  He’d left his wallet alongside his phone this time. She was dying to have a peek, but the cat-calling had started for the Animal Magnetism encore, and she was duty-bound to join in, whistling and slow-clapping above her head to call them back. Russ gave her a personal power salute as he stomped back out of the loo corridor, where the band was obliged to wait for their stage-storming finale. Kat realized she had no idea what star sign he was. Russ refused to celebrate birthdays, insisting it was a bourgeois affectation.

  Dougie came back into the pub just as the band launched into the Undertones’ ‘Here Comes The Summer’ as a deafening encore. The girl grooms had now relocated his drink, phone and wallet to the opposite end of the table so that they could win his attention. A pretty girl wearing too much makeup beamed up at him. ‘We’re both winners today! I won the members’ race.’

  ‘Good for you.’ Sitting down, he tried to catch Kat’s eye, but she was watching the action on stage. She hadn’t touched the pint of cider he’d bought her. Following her gaze to the tall guitarist flailing at his fingerboard, he wondered exactly what the deal was with Badger Man.

  The girl beside him was still talking about the point-to-point, shouting, ‘Seriously hard going! Took a lot of stamina!’

  Like flirting with Kat Mason, Dougie reflected. She was going to be a challenge, particularly after their bad start. He remained sceptical about his so-called bonus, but his ego wouldn’t let him give up on Dollar’s grand plan without some proof of his abilities, not least because he wanted to win her respect. He’d never met anyone capable of detaching sex from feelings, as Dollar could, or expressing so little outward emotion. By withholding so much, the slightest flicker felt like a breakthrough. By contrast, Kat Mason was an overload of smiles, anger, enthusiasm and passion that seemed messy and out of control. She also appeared to have a very big boyfriend.

  ‘Is the guitarist local?’ He nodded to the stage where the badger was doing a fret-climbing solo that was remarkably tuneful.

  ‘My cousin Russ,’ shouted the girl with too much makeup. ‘He’s an arboriculturalist. I’ll introduce you.’

  Dougie had no idea what an arboriculturalist was, but the fact it included ‘culture’ gave him hope that Russ might be an arty-farty type who rarely swung punches.

  When Russ bounded off stage, he accepted a free pint from the bar, clanked it against the earthmen’s, downed it in one, then followed his cousin’s beckoning arm to meet Dougie Everett, squaring up to the newcomer, rock star to mere mortal. In this pub, Animal Magnetism was the legend that would live on. What he hadn’t anticipated was that his badger outfit reeked so strongly of beer tent, cigarettes and stage sweat, it was impossible to stay downwind without feeling faint.

  Standing up to shake his hand, Dougie took a sharp step back, knocking his chair over, spluttering a few platitudes about his musical talent, then dashed apologetically outside, his phone and wallet still on the table.

  Swaggering away for a second pint, believing the smaller man was intimidated by his size and reputation, Russ left a trail of desolation as drinkers shrank away. Only the earthmen remained unbothered, sliding another drink across to him. ‘Reckon that actor’s after your bird,’ one warned darkly. When Russ’s eyes instinctively flew to Mags, canoodling with Calum by the dartboard, the earthman laughed. ‘Not the missus, Russ. The other one.’

  Coming out of the loo, mildly alarmed that wearing the deer’s head all day appeared to have given her an itchy scalp and stained her forehead orange, Kat was disconcerted to find the earthmen doing their silent Greek chorus thing at the bar, staring at her. Behind them, Russ was discreetly sniffing inside his badger costume.

  ‘There you are,’ said a smooth voice, as Dougie Everett appeared at her side, pocketing his phone and wallet. Despite being shorter than he looked on screen, he was a good head above her, she saw, affording him a close-up of her itchy red parting. ‘I’m going home, but I’ll swing by and look at your car soon.’

  She had an image of him yodelling into Lake Farm on a vine, like Tarzan on a vine. He had such a lazy, husky voice, it just had to be affected, in the same way those eyes were far too blue and flirtatious to be standard issue, staring so deeply into hers she half expected him to get out a watch on a chain and tell her she was feeling sleepy. Her vital organs were on the move again, huddling together nervously.

  About to tell him there was really no need to swing anywhere, she thought about the starter motor she couldn’t afford to get repaired, and said, ‘We’re usually around.’

  ‘I look forward to it.’ He flashed his devastating smile, did the look-through-the-lashes trick and ducked out of the pub to an audible chorus of female sighs from the large table by the stage, followed by a fluttering rush past Kat as the under-twenties headed back into the loos to gossip.

  Kat went back to the table to gather her pint, which she suddenly found she wanted a good bolt of.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Russ joined her, sitting alongside.

  She looked at him fondly, trying not to breathe in too deeply. His face paint had slipped so that he looked like Alice Cooper, but she was grateful for the kindness and concern in his dark eyes. ‘I’m cool. You were great tonight.’ She put an arm around him and snuggled tight, then regretted it as she found herself slithering against sweaty leather, her nostrils filled with acrid cider fumes despite the shallow breaths. Straightening up and gulping more of her pint, eyes watering, she asked, ‘What’s your star sign?’

  Striking a rapper’s pose, Russ held up his long fingers in a cat’s cradle of geometry shaped like a five-pointed star.

  Kat laughed: he probably had no idea. ‘When were you born?’

  ‘Early summer?’ he guessed, counting through ten months on his fingers from the fruit-picking season when his parents had met. ‘Anything else you want to know?’ He pressed his palms together, fingertips on his nose, dark eyes mesmerizingly alive.

  ‘What’s my star sign?’

  The palms went up.

  ‘Sagittarius,’ she told him. ‘The Archer.’

  Dollar’s white Porsche was parked outside the mill, the kitchen table laid with goodies that played straight into Dougie’s James Bond fantasies.

  Settling the sleeping Patterdale puppy into his temporary cardboard box bed by the Aga, he picked up the small carbon-fibre composite bow with a sheath of lightweight arrows. The bow was custom-made, inlaid with wood set with his initials. ‘A welcome gift from Seth,’ Dollar explained. ‘It is the very latest technology. He will look forward to a display of your skill when he visits with gue
sts.’

  Dougie tried to quash an image of himself in a Robin Hood hat skipping around the lime-tree avenue in front of suited businessmen, shooting flaming arrows into braziers of accelerant-doused wadding. ‘When will that be?’

  ‘Not for many weeks. By then you will have fully familiarized yourself with the estate and its hunting grounds. Your horses will be fit and the dogs in training.’

  ‘I’ve made a start on the dogs, if not the hounds.’ He looked at Quiver stretching his small front legs rigidly in his sleep, then arching his back and settling into a tight curl.

  ‘And of course you must gain Kat Mason’s trust and affection as a priority. I take it tonight went well.’