Chloe

by Freya North

  Mr and Mrs Andrews watched over her, this time in the form of a postcard reproduction from the National Gallery. It was them but they were very little and the closer Chloë looked at them, the more they disintegrated into dots which she found a little alarming. She had slipped the card into the corner of the mirror frame on the dressing-table, just so they could keep her in check first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Just so they were there.

  NINE

  Barbara stamped her hind hoof and positioned her forelegs squarely. She blew through her nostrils and curled her lips ever so slightly so that a noise midway between bellow and screech could hit Morwenna as soon as she shut the car door. When it reached her ears, a feeling of sinking dread coursed through and settled in the pit of her stomach. She looked over at Barbara who stared back icily with a glint most evil to her eyes. Though she opened the boot to double-check, she knew that her car was regrettably biscuit- and vegetable-free. Not a crumb. Not a shred. Not a bean.

  Morwenna decided on polite conversation but it merely served to irritate the goat further. Flattery was the only option left.

  ‘Ho! Barbara! There’s a good little goaty. My, you’re looking pretty, aren’t you?’

  Barbara stamped.

  ‘Listen, I don’t have a thing in these pockets. Very remiss of me. How about I make it up to you? Next time.’

  Barbara intended to ensure that there would not be a next time.

  As Morwenna approached, slightly stooped and with her right hand outstretched making strange tickling movements with her fingers, Barbara began to bob and weave like a boxer at the ringside. With just a few yards between them, Morwenna straightened up and put her hands on her hips.

  ‘You,’ she said, striding assertively towards Barbara, ‘are only a goat.’

  However, she had not reckoned on a goat with a grudge and, when it came to the simultaneous butt–bite–kick, Morwenna was viciously winded. Searching desperately for breath, she sat down with a thump on the damp ground, the meagre winter grass providing little cushioning. Barbara, who had turned her back on her and was defecating triumphantly, bleated with pride. Morwenna pressed her hand lightly to her thigh and winced. Once her breathing had calmed, she picked herself up with care and caution and walked to the car slowly. With as much dignity as she could muster, without looking back.

  ‘It was a goat,’ she mumbled into the neck of her thick jumper. She had rolled down her tights and hitched up her skirt to reveal a whorl of dark crimson and French navy. A splice of dry blood. Her leg trembled slightly but she told herself that this was due to her aversion to disinfectant, to infection, to Trust-me-I’m-a-doctor. It was, in part, also due to this doctor being extremely handsome.

  ‘A goat did this to you, Mrs Saxby?’ he asked quietly as he held her knee and crooked her leg up. His hands were warm, strong and hairless.

  ‘Ms,’ she replied taking her face out of the cavity of her polo-neck, ‘you know, with a zed. And yes, it was a goat.’

  ‘A billy-goat?’

  Ha! Billy’s goat indeed.

  ‘No. A pet goat.’

  ‘Gracious.’

  ‘Not mine.’

  ‘I’m not surprised!’ He laid her leg down gently and pondered into the crook of his index finger. ‘I see from your records that there is no record of tetanus jabs. In fact, we have no record of you at all for the last seven years.’ He looked at her face and saw anxiety sown deep behind defensive eyes. He also noticed their sparkle and felt a long forgotten butterfly take wing in his stomach. He smiled. ‘Either you’ve been as fit as a fiddle or you have an inherent mistrust of the medical profession!’

  Morwenna gave a nervous laugh and then retreated down into the mouth of her jumper.

  ‘We’ll give you a tetanus jab. And the once-over, too.’

  Morwenna sank visibly.

  ‘If it makes you feel any easier, I myself had the once-over just last week,’ the doctor assured her.

  Morwenna wondered why. He looked perfectly fit. He looked, actually, perfectly gorgeous.

  ‘At our age,’ he continued, scanning her notes, ‘it’s as important as servicing the car.’

  I don’t think I’ve ever had the Fiat serviced.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I can’t remember when I last had my car serviced,’ mumbled Morwenna.

  ‘Well then,’ he said grinning, ‘let’s hope we don’t find in you what undoubtedly lurks beneath your bonnet!’

  Morwenna looked at him sternly. ‘But the car’s been running fine. It splutters a bit, creaks here and there and can’t cope with cold mornings. Oh my God’ she declared as the metaphor dawned, ‘just like me!’

  ‘And me,’ he rued quite happily.

  ‘But why meddle if there’s no muddle?’

  He tipped back on his chair and observed her thoughtfully, tapping his fingertips together, wondering how to prolong her welcome presence in his surgery.

  ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to know if there’s a muddle before you’re in the middle of it?’

  Morwenna contemplated the doctor through the safety of her jumper which she had kept pulled up to just beneath her nose.

  ‘What’s involved in the once-over anyway?’ she said quickly, through her visor of wool.

  ‘Heart, blood, weight, lungs, breasts – nothing to it really. We’ll do it before we do the jab if you like.’

  I can’t let her go – I must just see if there’s a smile in there.

  Morwenna gazed through the surgery window to the beach. An elderly couple walked a pair of dachshunds and two children were playing energetically; she could hear their delighted laughter through their abandoned movement. Her thigh throbbed and her mind whirled.

  ‘OK,’ she said tentatively, keeping her gaze fixed where it was, ‘but I’ll just go for the jab today. And quick! Before I run away.’ She took her face quite out of her jumper and fixed a not-so-ambiguous smile on the doctor.

  Chloë has been at Skirrid End a month now, and has the saddle sores to prove it. She has also been nipped twice and trodden on often, but not by goats. She has newly defined biceps and firmer thighs as further proof of her new life, for every morning she is mucking out by seven-thirty, and twelve hours later she has bedded down eight horses and replenished twice as many water buckets twice a day. She rather likes the changes that country living has made to her body; her face has lost its pasty Islington tinge and her lungs are glad of the crystal air. Her hands are slightly thicker, her nails stubbier but she keeps them clean and trim and they are not unattractive at all. She has a healthy glow to her cheeks due in part to the crisp weather, and in part to the certain lust she has developed for Carl. Her lips, though, are a little chapped and she has convinced herself that they will be no good for kissing. Carl grows more handsome to her every day and it seems preposterous to Chloë that a man of such beauty,

  (and humour and kindness!)

  could ever want

  (and intelligence and manners!)

  to kiss her chapped lips.

  She feels a vitality each day on waking and wholesome fatigue on retiring each night. A general sense of well-being. She is healthier and happier than she can remember and often wonders whether she should even bother with the rest of the United Kingdom. She would be quite content with life ever after here in Wales. Hardly surprising, for she is cosseted and secure – an integral part of a household – and her resultant happiness defines that the household must therefore be Home. Or as near to one as she has hitherto come, remember.

  Conversation is on a very different plane to that to which Chloë had become accustomed over the preceding London-bound years. No one at Skirrid End knows Anna Recksick or whether there is much difference between a Gentleman’s Third and a First, and isn’t a 2:2 worn by ballerinas? Concerts on the South Bank could be fun, but at fifteen pounds per ticket, ludicrous! The tube sounds most uncivilized and Islington in dire need of greenery and more sky. In its collective voice, Skirrid End denounces the levels of noi
se, dirt and decay of the capital as intolerable, unthinkable and not worthy of further discussion.

  Instead, and to Chloë’s delight, talk at Skirrid is devoted to the land, the weather and animals, interspersed readily with bawdy jokes and heated discussion as to whose turn it is to be banker in Monopoly. Chloë has even started roaring with relish ‘A hapless reshuffle of very little point’ at the opportune moment.

  The days have a loose routine to them which provides a framework of security for Chloë. After mucking out, she gathers with Carl and Gin in the kitchen to discuss the day’s schedule. Lunch is self-service, as and when. Tea is an institution with bread and butter and fruitcake shared by all in the kitchen apart from the greyhound who is faddy about her food. Supper is delicious and invariably raucous, followed by life-and-death Monopoly sessions. (There is no television at Skirrid End and many of the letters from the Scrabble set have been eaten over the years by the greyhound, though this does not preclude occasional marathons of the game.) Dai, who proves to be a spendthrift with no notion of investment, usually bows out by nine and Gin, who mostly gambles everything for a hotel on Park Lane, retires soon after.

  Chloë and Carl are invariably left with a delicious hour or so together in which they make hot chocolate and light conversation and Monopoly does not matter. He tells her he is travelling and will move on in the spring. She tells him she is travelling too. Really. In a way. Ditto the spring. He whets her appetite for New Zealand and she tells him where not to go in London. He thinks he may miss London out altogether.

  ‘Anyways, I’ll be seeing Paris and Edin-burrow.’

  They learn each other’s favourite film (‘Really? Me too!’). And food. And favourite colour. And book (‘You must read it!’). They speak loosely of ‘back home’ but both feel compelled to live for the day and enjoy the present. Because of the Brett Years, Chloë has quite forgotten how to flirt and, deeming her lips unkissable anyway, she begins to find herself utterly relaxed in Carl’s easy company and chatters away freely. He adores her for it and also finds her rather alluring. He thinks she has the most beautiful hair he has ever seen and her freckles soon become the stuff of his last, late-night thoughts. But he doesn’t tell her so. Oh no. For while he is desperate to kiss her, he reads no sign of a come-on and presumes he must settle for just-good-friends. After all, not much point anyway with spring only a couple of months away to herald their separate ways.

  There have been times when, to kiss her, has been quite literally on the tip of his tongue. Once, he came across Chloë cleaning bridles in the tack room, humming softly in time with the grandfather clock; he had hummed in harmony and sincerity before a fit of giggles overtook them and Chloë stuffed the saddle-soap sponge down the back of his shirt. Then there was the time when Desmond threw her off with his spectacular, trademark ‘big one’ and she returned to the yard muddied, bruised and cross. Carl thought she looked fabulous, all wild and windswept (‘Like that chick Cathy from Wondering Heights’) and would have kissed her right through the mud had Gin not interrupted with cotton wool and ‘Is Desmond all right though?’ Most recently, Chloë made biscuits that were so melt-in-the-mouth and sweet that Carl was convinced her lips must taste likewise and was about to make a lunge for them when a very sudden and hapless reshuffle of absolutely no point took place.

  The problem, rued Carl to himself on a daily basis, was that he could rarely get Chloë on her own. And when he did, it was never for long enough for giggles and wrestling to subside and kissing to start in earnest.

  Lights are usually out by ten. Carl heads for his pad above the tack room and Chloë creeps and creaks her way up to The Rafters. Sometimes, accidentally on purpose, she catches sight of him from the dormer window. If he hasn’t seen her, she whips herself out of view to return for another peek when her heart has slowed up. If he has seen her, she waves nonchalantly and swings the curtains across with a blasé flourish. Each night, she stares at the green rafters and pouts and puckers her lips in readiness for the time when the Vaseline has worked its magic and her mouth is in a fit state for osculation.

  At this stage, neither of them has thought much beyond a mutual exchange of lips. For both, this first home run seems momentarily so beyond reach that anything it could possibly lead to remains an unattainable and somewhat unreal notion tucked to the very backs of their minds. A kiss, for the moment, would quite suffice. But when? And how, damn it!

  TEN

  Chloë’s day revolves around the horses and their needs. She is in the saddle for a couple of hours before and after lunch, interspersed with grooming, tack cleaning, rug mending and water-bucket replenishing. Mostly, she takes small, appreciative, pony-mad children out for a generally civilized hack (Desmond permitting). Sometimes, Gin sends her off for a ride to the woods, or down to the stream, or halfway up the hill.

  ‘Just to check,’ she tells Chloë, ‘on Things.’

  When she returns from such outings, Gin asks ‘How’s Things?’ to which Chloë has learnt to reply ‘Things is fine.’

  Initially, she tried a more detailed report about riverbanks and saplings but Gin’s glazed look told her quite clearly that she had missed the point.

  Today, with the loose-boxes mucked out and Chloë and Carl not quite recovered from a dung-slinging session on the muck heap (after which neither was remotely kissable), Gin has brought them a mug of tea apiece in the tack room and is telling them about the day ahead.

  ‘Do you mind popping into Abergavenny? It’s market day and a good opportunity for you, Carl, to see if there are any viable propositions in the camper-van trade, or in whatever wagon it is that you intend to traverse Europe. Chloë, I thought I might leave you to buy a few things from the tack shop for the gymkhana tomorrow. Bugger, tomorrow is Saturday, isn’t it? Must be, if today’s market day.’

  ‘You not going to join us?’ asks Carl.

  ‘No, it appears I’m going to have my headache today. I’m even going to banish Dai to the top field for the duration so I can truly have it in peace. Take the Land Rover. And for heaven’s sake, take JR too!’

  Dai is in the top field. Gin has exiled herself with her biannual headache. Carl and Chloë have been banished to Abergavenny. Just the two of them. Well, and JR but they are bribing him successfully with chocolate.

  Together, alone, at last.

  A trip to Abergavenny was not really a treat. To Monmouth maybe; to Aber, it was more of a chore. Today, though, Chloë and Carl were thankful for the usual traffic jams and bottlenecks and the unpredictable nature of the Land Rover, as it threw them together in close proximity for longer.

  ‘Yo! Looks like we’re going to stall again! Wait for it!’

  ‘Ready! Two, three – now!’

  ‘Way to go, JR! Take him off the dashboard, Chlo. Can’t see a thing!’

  Since the moment they left Skirrid End, they have been coaxing obedience out of JR with various brands of chocolate. The Jack Russell is now looking rather green and is refusing the final offering. It enables Chloë and Carl to discover that they both share a predilection for the common Mars bar. They are excessively thrilled at the coincidence.

  ‘I can’t believe that Mars bars are your favourite too! I’m not even a chocolatey person!’ chips Chloë.

  ‘Yih!’ drawls Carl, sucking glucose and goop from around his teeth. ‘I’m not really a choco fan either. But once in a while, a craving for a Mars bar hits me and I’m a gonner.’

  ‘Say it again,’ says Chloë, wriggling in her seat.

  ‘Huh?’ asks Carl, taking his eyes from the road.

  ‘It,’ stresses Chloë, grabbing the steering wheel to avoid the ditch, ‘the chocolate bar we both like!’

  ‘Mars bar?’

  ‘Yes, Mahz bah!’ mimics Chloë delighted.

  ‘Mars bar?’

  ‘Mahz bah!’

  ‘Shit Chlo,’ Carl smiled, ‘you’re kind of spooky but – Christ! the Land Rover’s going to stall again. Hold on to JR this time!’

  After
they had circumnavigated Abergavenny twice looking for a free parking place, they fought their way into the Pay and Display, did both, and then split up to accomplish their individual tasks. Carl went in search of ‘combies’, as he called the camper-vans, inadvertently driving Chloë delirious; Chloë took JR and went to buy hoof picks, mane combs and other equine accoutrements suitable for gymkhana prizes.

  Needless to say, neither could keep their mind on the task in hand. After a lengthy discussion with a salesman who could have been promoting Brylcreem as much as second-hand cars, Carl made a decision.

  ‘I’m interested, mate. I’ll have a think about it. But first I’m going to kiss Chloë.’

  Humming away, Chloë was studying a vulcanite D-ring snaffle while filling her nostrils with the heavenly scent of a dressage saddle when she was suddenly grasped from behind and pirouetted. She did not notice the running martingales fall from their hook and bind themselves around JR, nor did she hear the clang of ten hoof picks as they hit the floor. She was oblivious to bridles slithering off the wall and was unaware that the dressage saddle was slowly slipping off its stand. All she knew was that Carl was kissing her and the world could wait. Heaven sent him, thank you, God. With her favourite smell of leather (‘Shit Chlo! Mine too!’) surrounding her, she was being expertly kissed by her chosen Adonis, surrounded by merchandise devoted to equitation. Heaven now had no mystique, for it could only be such a place.

  Pressed against the wall, dislodging an entire selection of clincher brow bands, Chloë gladly welcomes Carl’s leg between hers and rides him gently and subconsciously as she kisses him. She can feel his erection poking through his jeans, through hers, and just above her appendix and she says to herself that it can give her peritonitis for all she cares. Slipping her hand through his hair to the back of his neck, she can feel his skin prickle and dampen under her touch. It thrills her. She feels rather proud. Carl is making noises that Chloë has never heard a man make. Spontaneous gulps and groans stifled by the intensity of lip work. She can hear similar sounds an octave higher.