by Daisy Waugh
Fin’s due in on the late train tonight. Just spoken to him. He sounded very tetchy. I get the impression he’s looking forward to our next few days together almost as much I am. At least—that’s unfair. He’s desperate to see the children, and the children are so excited about seeing him they can hardly stand up straight. They spent the whole weekend making a ‘WELCOME HOME’ banner for him, and they’re up on the landing at the moment, trying to attach the wretched thing to the banisters. In fact it sounds like Ripley’s got stuck. I think I’d better go and help him.
COUNTRY MOLE
Sunday Times
Sex, sex, sex. That’s all I can think about this week, reader! It’s been quite a lively time down here in Paradise. And I think I’ve finally made a friend! He and I met up for our second game of tennis on Friday. And guess what? We ended up in bed! Except—ha, of course, when I say bed I mean pretty much anywhere but. A bed. I mean—
To the dirty details, then. Every filthy one of them! Darrell (that’s the non-biscuit-eating builder to you—that’s right, the man who built our beautiful kitchen), my friend Darrell…has a body like—Or, no, I won’t even begin on the body, yet. He has hands like a—He does things with his hands like a—
Like a—
Ohhh, fuck it.
Fuck it.
Fuck fuck fuck.
I need a cold shower. I need an icy cold bath. I need a—Ah! And here comes the postman to bring me back to earth. To bore me into a stupor. To talk about bloody trees, and maybe calm me down a bit…Hello postman. What have you got for me today? Have you got a man with hands like a—
Right then. Start again. Start again.
…Or maybe not, actually. This is never going to work. Column’s not due in until tomorrow, anyway. I’ll do it this evening. Be a good excuse to avoid having to deal with Fin.
Friday
Start again. To business. And now I’ve got that horrible letter, I can write about Darrell without mentioning his—Deep, deep breath.
And start again.
COUNTRY MOLE
Sunday Times
Heartbreak and chaos all round down here in Paradise. The husband’s abroad and has been (on and off) for some time. The landscape gardener has wasted our money and moved on, the dog’s on heat and been missing since seven o’clock this morning, the ceiling has collapsed onto our state-of-the-art new kitchen, and—worst of all—the handsome man who built it, who used to sing Fred Astaire songs while he worked, has just sent us a bill out of the blue complaining of ‘unforeseen labour and expenses’, and demanding an extra £1,400. I don’t know what he’s playing at. So far I’ve ignored the bill. I’ve put it in various places, on mantelpieces and bookshelves and different desks and am happy to report that I’ve now lost it completely. But I’ll have to confront the thing eventually. The man’s not-so-handsome partner has already started texting me, which is slightly unnerving.
More than unnerving, actually; slightly depressing—because as it happens the other one (the handsome one) and I played tennis a couple of times not so long ago. We drank cider together afterwards and everything. I think I thought he was a friend.
Ditto the landscape gardener. She seemed lovely at the beginning: woolly and vague and full of earthy, West Country humour. She was meant to be levelling the delicate slope on our front terrace and, because she said she was a missionary’s daughter, I agreed to pay her in advance. Somehow she’s managed to transform what was once a faintly annoying tilt into something resembling the Matterhorn; so steep and bumpy the children have been using it for tobogganing.
When I suggested, tentatively, that the terrace could perhaps have been made a fraction flatter, the woolly missionary’s daughter’s voice soared in rage. Her character transformed. ‘There’s only so flat you can get a place,’ she screamed. I didn’t know what to say to that, so I offered her goat’s cheese soup from the microwave and apologised profusely. It seemed to calm her down. Her voice returned to normal. And then she wandered away, leaving sacks of sand and cement scattered about the garden. I haven’t seen her since.
The kitchen ceiling, meanwhile, collapsed about a fortnight ago, maybe even longer—because I left the upstairs bath running one day while I took the children to school. We thought we’d found a builder to fix it. Or rather, the husband did. He tracked somebody down via the net—not only that, somebody who claimed he could start immediately, which was clearly a point in his favour. We had decided to overlook the fact that he came without a landline, a physical address or even any references, because we were desperate. We still are. Or the husband is. I’ve got pretty used to it, to be honest.
In any case the builder came round on Friday, three days before work was due to begin. The husband, who was meant to have been there to meet him, had needed to rush off back to London at the last minute. So. It was just me and the builder. He seemed to be very nice; very reassuring. But half an hour after leaving he called my mobile and declared he couldn’t, after all, do the job without a £3,000 advance. In cash. Obviously I tried to barter him down. Might he, I wondered, possibly be able to manage with slightly less? £1,000, for example. It didn’t go down so well. He announced it was impossible for him to work when there was an ‘issue of trust’ between us, and he hung up, and oddly enough he’s been screening mine and the husband’s calls ever since.
…Still no sign of the dog by the way. Nearly six hours she’s been gone now. I’m wondering whether I can get her a morning-after pill—that is, if she ever comes back again. Our local vet is strictly homeopathic so I don’t suppose he’ll approve, but something’s going to have to be done. There’s a disgusting, mangy old sheepdog taken to camping on our new, perpendicular terrace. And it’s impossible, through so many layers of dangling sheep-shit, to make out its gender either way, but his sudden affection for our doorstep makes me fear the worst.
Of course there comes a moment, at times like these, when painful questions have to be asked. For example, can I really remain blameless amid this litany of unfortunate events? Or is there something about me, something flash and metropolitan which a) prevents me from switching off baths and closing doors behind animals on heat, and b)beams like a magnet across the West Country, attracting crooks to my Prada-imitation wallet—Oh goodness, but here comes the dog! Walking a bit funny. Better get off to the vet.
Thursday April 12th
Fin’s home again. He’s been home solidly for six days now and he intends to remain here until at least the weekend, possibly even until Tuesday. I suppose I ought to be pleased, but he’s been pacing around the house like a caged animal, all knotted up with irritation because of the supposed chaos. I don’t even notice it any more. If I ever did. In fact he’s been in a sort of perma-frott of disapproval pretty much the entire week and it’s got to the point now where I think I can hear his tongue clicking from the bloody village shop. I’m beginning to long for him to go away again. At least then I’d be able to watch telly in bed.
He was meant to have gone back to London two days ago but for some mysterious reason he decided against it. He says he’s cancelled a bunch of meetings because, he says, he’s fed up with being away from his family—but I don’t think I believe him. Apart from the fact that he seems amazingly fed up at being with his family, I talked to Hatt’s nanny last night (didn’t leave a message). She told me Hatt’s away in Düsseldorf until Monday. Rotterdam, maybe. Don’t care. In any case—quite a coincidence, I don’t think. He says Hatt’s offered to rent him a room permanently in her big, fat Notting Hill house with ceilings. She didn’t even discuss it with me first, the silly cow. And he’s going to take her up on the offer. Says it’s much more comfortable than the sofabed, and I’m sure it is. I’m sure it is. In the meantime, when he’s not ostentatiously tidying neglected corners of this house, he’s on the telephone in search of a builder. I get the impression he’s not going to give up, either. He’s not going to stop until this situation is resolved.
I can’t work out if my uncharacteris
tically Zen-like approach to said catastrophe is in fact nothing more than an elaborate new way of annoying him. A bit worried it may be. Either way, it’s a shame I can’t extend the Zen feel beyond our damaged kitchen, to our damaged marriage. Fin and I can’t seem to look at each other without finding something petty to squabble about. It’s horrible. Really, it is. Because I love him. I mean I do. Usually. But he’s endlessly rearranging things which were perfectly OK in the first place; and always with this sodding great Ready Brek glow of reproach beaming off him. Anyway. Anyway. Maybe it’s not easy for him either. Or something. Maybe it isn’t. Or maybe he just wishes he was already installed at Hatty’s, where there’s somebody paid to keep the house looking spotless all the time, and where kitchen ceilings would never be so frivolous as to fall in.
Plus, of course, I still haven’t had a chance to speak to Darrell. Not about anything, least of all…Oh God. Here comes Herr Himmler, demanding to know where I left the secateurs. I’ve never touched them in my life. I don’t think.
Better hide.
Sunday April 15th
Drinkipoos chez Clare Gower and her husband last night. Henceforth to be known, I think, as Beauty-Secrets and the Beast. Or possibly not. Bit mean. Mr and Mrs Mega-Bux, perhaps. The Mister is a pretty good Monster—though, it has to be said, a very rich and very helpful one. He’s sending his builders round first thing tomorrow to sort out our ceiling. It should all be finished within a couple of weeks.
Fin came with me to the Gowers’, too, which made a nice change. It did. We haven’t been out together for weeks.
The evening started very badly, though, because it turned out I’d got the wrong date and the drinks party had been and gone the previous evening. How could I have been so stupid? It’s the only party we’ve been invited to in months. Actually it’s the only party we’ve been invited to since we’ve been down here. And I messed it up.
So—not very surprisingly—the Gower house, beautiful and shiny, was completely silent when we arrived. There were only two cars parked out front (a BMW tank, which Clare drives, and a black sports car, make forgotten but which Fin said was very smart). Nevertheless Fin and I presented ourselves at the front door, all togged up in our drinkipoos finest. We were squabbling with each other, in whispers, about whose fault it was that we had obviously arrived either too early or too late—and then Clare appeared. She was nibbling on a pomegranate and wearing a silky, peachy négligé with skimpy, coordinating dressing gown on top. It could, feasibly, have been a party outfit, I thought. I hoped. But then I noticed the look of astonishment on her face, and the fact that she was also wearing furry slippers.
She gazed at the two of us in silence. I said, ‘Oh God. It’s the wrong night, isn’t it?’ And she just burst out laughing. She was lovely—just as she had been the last time, when I forgot she was coming to lunch. She ushered us both in, despite our protests. And we did protest a lot—the poor woman was dressed for bed…But she was adamant that we stayed. In fact she more or less pulled Fin into the house. ‘Better late than never!’ she cried. ‘I was only vegging in front of the telly, anyway! Come on in! Roger’s here! I’ll pop upstairs and get changed and then we can all have a lovely lovely drink!’ It occurred to me vaguely that she might have had one or two lovely ones already. She was a bit clumsy, in her furry slippers, and a tiny bit red in the face. ‘Honestly, girl,’ she said to me, ‘you’ll be forgetting your own head next!’
We followed her through the newly refurbished hall to the sitting room, also newly refurbished, as she was quick to point out. ‘Completely different,’ she exclaimed, ‘since our little coffee morning! Don’t you think?’ I’m not certain I would have noticed. It looked pretty much completely the same to me. Well, maybe very slightly more luxurious—from a club-class airport lounge to a firstclass, sort of thing; but the beiges and oatmeals all seemed to be unchanged.
‘It looks amazing,’ I said cleverly. Which it did, in fact, if you rate sheer luxury before any semblance of individual taste. And after an evening of cosseting in that sitting room, I sincerely wish more people did. Anyway, Clare was very pleased with the sitting room’s new look. She explained to Fin, who gave every appearance of being riveted, that the room had been so mucky before, she’d been forced to start completely from scratch: fresh carpets, new sofas, new curtains—even the paintings had been bought in. The room smelled of lilies, which was nice; and when Clare fixed us our drinks from the bar at the back of the room I noticed she used a little machine which frosted our glasses with a fine sheen of ice. Thrilling.
Before she disappeared upstairs to change she poured Fin a perfectly frosted tumbler of whisky and then delivered it to him, in all her peachy finery, swaying and purring just like Jessica Rabbit. ‘So, Mr Film Producer,’ she said to him, ‘we meet at last! I can’t believe it’s taken so long. I’ve heard so much about you…’
I remember at school there used to be girls who completely transformed as soon as there were boys in the room. She was like that. It was definitely embarrassing, I thought. Fin, I have to say, didn’t seem to mind in the least.
She disappeared for half an hour after that, returning in cream-coloured woollen trousers, cream-coloured high heels and a silk cream blouse, and carrying a plateful of smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches. By then her husband had already joined us.
He’d sauntered in a couple of minutes earlier, looking small and, understandably enough, quite bad tempered. I apologised for barging in on his evening, but he brushed it aside with a flick of his pudgy, Mega-Buck wrist. ‘Not at all. Not at all,’ he said, without really looking at me, and made himself a frosted gin and tonic. Or frosted gin, actually, mostly. In any case. Then he plonked himself down on a big, fat, creamy sofa and addressed himself to Fin.
‘You fixed your ceiling yet?’ he said. Like black treacle, his voice was: deep and arrogant and unhealthy, full of phony poshness and pure corruption. It might have been quite sexy, in fact, if its owner hadn’t been so small.
In any case, before Fin had even started to shake his head, Mr Mega-Bux (Roger) had already flashed out his mobile telephone. He was already speed-dialling what I assumed was his PA.
‘Yaahh. Liza darling. I need you to call O’Connor for mé. Could you tell him Mr Gower needs a favah. Got a job for him. Great, great friend of ours urgentlé needs a ceiling put in. Yup, pronto. Could you organise that? Liza, you’re an angel. You’re a star. Thank you, darling. Just tell his girl to call my wife, would you?’ At which point his wife appeared before him, offering up her sandwich plate. He took one sandwich—beautiful, delicate, perfect little sandwich that it was—and shovelled it into his mouth without glancing at it or her. ‘Clare’ll have all the details,’ he said, munching through. And he hung up. Turned to the wife. Wrinkled his nose in dissatisfaction. ‘Do we have anything more cheesé?’ he asked. She tripped off to the kitchen to find out.
‘So.’ Roger said, looking at Fin. ‘Clare tells me you’re in films. Ever come across Sharon Stone? I tell you, that’s one lady I’d definitely pay some change to know better.’ And they were off. Sharon Stone. Sale and Leaseback. Sharon Stone…tax breaks…investment opportunities…Sharon Stone. Heaven.
Clare, when she wasn’t hopping up and down in search of cheesy things for her husband, and when she wasn’t offering sandwiches and cleavages to mine, very sweetly invited Ripley and Dora round next week to go riding. We’re going on Wednesday, as soon as the school breaks up.
Something funny happened when I talked about our neighbours and the poplar trees. Roger Mega-Bux listened to the story with half an ear, and immediately announced we should sue, though he was unwilling to be specific on what grounds. ‘It doesn’t matter what grounds,’ he said dismissively. ‘Get your solicitor to send them one of his nasties. Those trees’ll be sawdust by breakfast, I’m telling you.’ He shovelled something cheesy into his mouth, and in the slightly long pause, while we all waited for him to swallow, Clare Gower said, ‘Roger’s got a point, you know. Do
n’t you think, Fin?’
‘Who are they, these bloody fools?’ Roger demanded (talking over her, as it happens). ‘Do we know them, Clare?’
Clare didn’t answer. She asked Fin if his drink was all right.
I said I didn’t know their names, but that I thought Clare did, and I asked her and she said, ‘Oh, goodness, I can’t even remember now.’ At which point it was pretty obvious something was wrong.
‘What are they called, Clare?’ Roger asked again. She said, ‘I think they’re called—oh gosh, I really can’t remember. Hunter—Somethingorother, I should think. I honestly can’t remember, Roger. Does anyone want another drink?’
‘Ah. Mr and Mrs Hunter-Robinson,’ said Roger, looking straight at her. ‘We know them, don’t we, Clare?’
At which point an appalling silence fell—broken, I’m proud to say, by moi, thinking on my feet as ever. I asked Clare if she’d mind showing me the way to the lavatory. Which she did.
But what the Hell was all that about?
April 16th
I was coming back from finally introducing myself to one of the unspeakable, mysterious Hunter-Horribles next door, and there was Darrell just in front of me, heading up to the house. I saw him on the path and stopped him before he got any further. Fin was still at home at that point. Not that he could possibly have seen anything. Anyway, I don’t want to think about that. Fin’s gone now, back to Hatty’s house. I don’t want to think about him.
It was a beautiful evening. I spotted Darrell strolling carelessly through the long golden shadows, and my heart missed a beat. Unfortunately. He looked thoughtful. Light. Most of all he just looked incredibly, incredibly attractive. He smiled when he spotted me. It was the first time we’d seen each other—the first time we’d had any contact since he hung up on me that time. Still, I didn’t smile back. I beckoned for him to come away from the house, and together we snuck out, back onto the village road, onto the bridleway that runs up behind the church, and into the woods.