Madge drew in her breath, disappointed when his fingers slipped out of her, but shocked when James moved down her body, kissing her hips and inner thighs before moving his mouth to where his fingers had been minutes earlier. Madge tensed, and James immediately stopped, sitting up to look at her. ‘Tell me you don’t like it, Madge, and I’ll stop.’
‘But, is it right? It feels lovely but…’ Madge stopped, embarrassed.
‘It is lovely, you’re lovely, and it is so right if you enjoy it, but I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to.’ James smiled his lazy smile down at her.
‘It felt so heavenly.’ Madge knew she was giving James permission to kiss her down there again and she moved her legs once more. He took her hand, stroking the softness of her palm and then moved his body and his fingers down her hips, kissing the sharp ridge of her hip before gently moving aside the silky material of her pants with his tongue. He inserted one finger, moving his mouth and licking slowly and oh so deliciously at her mound. Madge felt her body begin to judder – it was, she thought wildly and irreverently, like that wonderful moment before a huge sneeze – and she gave a little ‘oh’ of surprise as her whole being exploded.
James smiled that wonderful knowing smile once more and, tilting her hips into his own hardness, entered her and, with long slow strokes that set Madge on fire once more, reached his own climax, biting his lip to stop himself crying out loud.
‘I wasn’t being a fantasist,’ James said seriously twenty minutes later when he and Madge sat outside in the late afternoon sunshine. They were seated side by side, James stroking Madge’s hair as they sat on an ancient bench facing the perimeter fence of the farm and the view down the valley, two slight dips in the stonework showing where other bottoms had previously been sat over the years. James closed his eyes soaking up the last of the heat of the day. ‘When this is all over – if I survive – I don’t want to be an architect in London. I mean, I still want to be an architect: there’s nothing I’d rather be, although I know my father assumes I shall go into politics like him and my grandfather. I love this area, what I’ve seen of it anyway.’
Madge squeezed his hand but let him continue.
‘I’m going to find who owns this place, Madge. See if it’s for sale.’
‘But your dad… he’ll blame me, you know...’
She never finished her sentence as James, utterly taken by surprise, was grabbed from behind and knocked sideways off the bench and onto the grass. Madge jumped up in horror as a bundle of fury leaped on James, throwing punches wherever it could.
‘Arthur Booth, get off him, you stupid, stupid idiot.’ Madge launched herself at Arthur, pulling at his shirt and receiving a blow on her arm as he tried to push her off.
Taken initially by surprise, James had landed heavily on the ground but Arthur, a good deal smaller and slighter than James, was no match for him once James realised what was happening and had jumped up, knocking Arthur off him and onto the ground. James took both Arthur’s flailing arms, twisting them behind his back and pinning him down so that his face was buried in the grass.
‘Do you know him?’ James panted angrily. ‘You seem to know his name.’
‘Aye, she does, an’ all.’ Arthur spat the words from the side of his mouth not squashed into the grass. ‘She’s engaged to me. She’s my girlfriend.’
‘Arthur, I am not engaged to you.’ Madge shouted furiously. ‘I never have been, and never will be. And Arthur, this is Squadron Leader Montgomery-West, one of your officers.’
‘Aye, I know exactly who he is, Madge, and how you’ve been carrying on with him behind my back. And if I end up being court-martialled for assaulting an officer, it’ll be your fault, you dirty bitch…’
James, livid, shook Arthur until he almost rattled and Madge had to pull on James’s arm for fear he might end up killing him. ‘Listen, Booth, I recognise you now,’ he hissed. ‘You’re one of the erks on the airbase. So, listen well to what I’m going to say. You’re going to get up and go back the way you came. If you ever get in touch with Madge again, or pull a stunt like that ever again, you’ll be court-martialled and thrown in the clink and the key thrown away. Now, when I get back to Bourne, I shall file a report on the incident but I shall keep it under lock and key. Any contact with Madge or any attempt to get back at me, and the report goes straight to Group Captain Bellingham. And, Booth, I shall suggest you’re moved to another base – probably the best all round for all of us.’ James loosened his hold on Arthur and, as he picked himself up from the grass, James watched him, taking in every aspect of him. ‘One more thing, Arthur,’ James’s voice was quiet. ‘In your place, I’d have done exactly the same thing.’
*
‘How did Arthur know you were down at Holly Close Farm with James?’ Daisy and I were enthralled, hanging on to every word as the three of us sat in front of the fire, drinking large glasses of Merlot and eating home-made Christmas cake – from M&S – with a big lump of Wensleydale.
‘Well, as James and I had walked across the fields, very near to the farm, we’d bumped into Leonard Bassinger and Walter Dyson, two of Arthur’s friends from school. They’d both opted to go down the mine – you know, the one over at Almast – when they left school, so were in a reserved occupation and didn’t have to enlist. I can remember it like it was yesterday, the looks the pair of them gave me as James and I passed them. I reckon they must have followed us and, once we went down the lane and through the gate of Holly Close Farm, scarpered back to Arthur’s house and told him where I was and who I was with.
‘And did Arthur get into trouble? Did James sprag him up once he got back to Bourne?’ Daisy licked a finger and mopped up cake crumbs from her plate while Malvolio looked on longingly, strings of drool hanging from his mouth.
‘Sprag him up?’ Madge pulled a pained expression. ‘What peculiar language you girls use. ‘Do you mean shop him?’
‘Absolutely,’ Daisy said comfortably, relenting and giving the dog a slice of cheese. ‘It’s Christmas,’ she added, when she saw my face. ‘So, was Arthur in trouble?’
‘No,’ Madge shook her head. ‘James wasn’t the type to get people into trouble. And Arthur stayed at Bourne for the duration of the war. He was a good mechanic and James would have needed a reason to suggest one of the base mechanics be moved elsewhere.’
‘I bet James was a bit nervous, though, wasn’t he? Daisy frowned. ‘You know, going up in a bomber that had been serviced by his love rival.’
Madge smiled at that. ‘There was a whole raft of mechanics on each base. There had to be, you know, and I’ve no idea whether Arthur worked on James’s machine.’ Madge’s face clouded with pain as she spoke. ‘But he was certainly one of the first to know, and presumably celebrated his good luck, when R-Rascal went missing over Holland and never returned to base.’
Madge closed her eyes and kept them closed and Daisy and I looked at each other, not sure what to say or do next. Madge was saved from further questioning by the kitchen door banging open and Dad, obviously drunk and much the worse for wear, staggering into the sitting room. ‘There’s something in my shed making a hell of a noise and trying to get out,’ he said, his eyes wide. ‘You don’t think it’s one of Santa’s reindeers that’s got in there by mistake and can’t get out…?’
Dad started laughing at the very idea, fell over Malvolio, who was still eyeing the remains of the cheese, and lay comatose for several seconds before beginning to snore loudly and deeply.
25
Surely Dominic would text me today? You know, just to say Merry Christmas?
‘No, he hasn’t.’ Daisy, guessing my thoughts, reached for my phone. ‘And don’t you go thinking that just because it’s Christmas Day you have any excuse to contact him either.’
‘If you remember,’ I snapped crossly, ‘Arabella Double-Barrelled made him change his number.’
‘Oh, don’t tell me you haven’t been back on to Abraham Developments website and found his new personal
number.’
Blimey, that girl knew my every move. I’d done just that and knew the new number off by heart.
‘And I bet you know it off by heart.’
I threw the dishcloth at Daisy and she deftly caught it and threw it straight back. She was always better at netball than me.
‘What were you thinking of, you two, letting Madge drink so much red wine last night?’ Mum tried to manoeuvre the turkey into the oven but failed miserably. ‘You’ve probably pickled what was left of any brain cells she still has. You do know that we lose them at an alarming rate once we get past seventy?’
‘Past fifty, if the size of that turkey is anything to go by,’ I snapped, taking my frustration at Dominic’s absent seasonal greetings out on Mum. ‘Why the hell don’t you buy a smaller turkey… or a bigger bloody oven? You have the same battle every Christmas morning.’
Daisy, bleary eyed and still in her panda onesie left off the hunt for her Cadbury’s Selection Box, which Dad had hidden from us every Christmas since we were about five-years-old, and laughed. ‘Oh, come on, Charlie, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without the annual turkey tussle. Chop its legs off, Mum.’
‘And who said you could invite a badger home for Christmas anyway?’ Mum ignored Daisy. ‘Your father must have been dealing with the damned thing for hours after you both just sloped off to bed and left him to it. It really went for him, apparently. He was already in a bad enough state after eating Hayley O’Hare’s quite inedible chilli washed down with enough whisky to floor a Scotsman. How he managed to stay upright to catch the creature and tranquillise it to set its leg – legs, actually: you broke two of its legs, Daisy – is anyone’s guess.’
‘James died Mum.’
‘Madge’s James?’ Mum gave the oven door a final whack and looked at me, eyes wide. ‘How tragic.’
‘Who is James? And, more importantly, who has any paracetamol?’ Vivienne, floating around in a pink shell suit and devoid of her usual make-up, was looking pretty ropey, as well as all of her seventy-odd years. ‘I’ve such a headache,’ she went on, pressing two fingers to her temple in an Oscar-winning performance. ‘I can’t imagine what Graham was up to in the shed last night. It sounded like someone was being murdered: I didn’t sleep a wink and it’s left me with one of my heads.’
‘Nothing to do with the gin you were knocking back at your cocktail do?’ Mum asked drily.
‘Talking of alcohol, where’s Dad now?’ Daisy glanced at the kitchen clock. ‘It isn’t on, you know: doesn’t he realise it’s Christmas morning and he has responsibilities? There should be bacon sandwiches and Bucks Fizz on the table by now. He’s slacking…’
‘So, who is James?’ Vivienne insisted. ‘Has Madge been having an affair? At her age?’ She sniffed disdainfully, obviously hating the idea of anyone having a better love life than herself. Bad enough Nancy would soon be arriving with a new man in tow, never mind Madge getting a share of any action going.
‘About time, Dad. Come on, we’re all starving hungry here.’ Daisy folded her arms as Dad made his entrance.
‘You’re like a pair of bloody cuckoos, you two…’ He rubbed at his blood-shot eyes and gazed dolefully at the weals and scratches visible on both arms protruding from the YOUR DOG ONLY NEEDS THE BALLS HE FETCHES T-shirt he regularly slept in.
‘Mum!’ We all turned as one when the kitchen door opened and Granny Nancy walked in. Immaculately dressed in a red coat – not dissimilar to the Max Mara Madge had inherited – furry hat and long black leather boots, I thought at first Father Christmas was making a tardy reappearance.
Nancy peeled off her black leather gloves, kissed Mum coolly on the cheek and then, surveying the rest of us in our various state of undress and alcohol withdrawal, said drily, ‘Lovely to see you all looking so well and full of the Christmas spirit.’
*
Christmas Day started well.
Muttering to himself that, thank God, he at least had an ally in the dog, Dad accepted he was once more about to be submerged in female-only company and came up trumps, sorting breakfast for us all, as was the family tradition. He kept Barbara Badger – ‘another bloody woman - and pregnant too, by the look of her’ – tranquillised in a dog cage in the shed and, once he’d given us a total rollicking for being so stupid as to handle and bring home such a savage creature, especially on Christmas Eve, even praised Daisy and me for rescuing her and showing the true spirit of Christmas to a dumb animal. Which I thought was a bit over the top, and I put down to the Scotch still circling his bloodstream.
Vivienne, who’d always viewed the very chic Nancy as some sort of competition, arrived at the dinner table so utterly dolled up, she had all the makings of a probationer drag queen. Sporting long red nails and what appeared to be a couple of tarantulas stuck to her aquamarine eyelids, she sashayed to her chair wearing the tightest of sparkly dresses and proceeded to hold court throughout lunch while the rest of us attended to her every need.
‘So, Nancy, I thought you had a new friend coming with you today?’ Vivienne folded her Rudolph the Reindeer paper napkin, placing it neatly onto the detritus of cheese, nuts and tangerine peel in front of her, and faced Nancy.
Nancy went slightly pink. ‘Oh, I thought it would be too much trouble for Kate to have more guests. He was happy to go to his sister in Chester.’
‘A man?’ Dad was animated for a second. ‘We nearly had a man here?’
‘And Nancy,’ Vivienne interrupted, ‘isn’t it wonderful news that Madge has sold her secret house? And given the cottage to Daisy and Charlotte for themselves?’ Vivienne took a sip of her pudding wine, eyeing Nancy over the fluted glass and through the tarantulas to see her reaction. ‘I’ve not been allowed to see this mystery house yet, but I believe—’
‘You’ve done what, Mother?’ Nancy’s voice was pure steel.
‘Mum, not now.’ Dad glared at Vivienne.
‘Nancy, I was going to tell you after we’d eaten but, as the subject has been broached, I don’t see why we shouldn’t discuss it now.’ Madge spoke calmly and levelly. ‘I’m not sure it will be of any interest to Graham and Vivienne.’ Madge turned to Vivienne, who wavered slightly under her direct glare.
‘Come on, Mum.’ Dad virtually manhandled Vivienne from her seat. ‘You can come and help me make coffee in the kitchen and then you and I can hog the sofa, the TV and the Christmas cake and watch something good while all the Booth girls discuss the mystery house.’
‘Thank you, Graham.’ Madge stroked Dad’s arm as he ushered Vivienne towards the sitting room and a rerun of a Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special.
Mum poured more pudding wine. ‘Best bit about Christmas pud is the wine that goes with it,’ she said vaguely. ‘Mum,’ she went on, going to sit by Nancy in the vacated seat next to her, ‘I know about what happened to Granddad Arthur. The girls know.’
‘I think, Nancy, now that this has all come out, I need to tell you everything.’ Madge had gone quite pale and her hand shook slightly around the stem of her glass. ‘It was never my intention to tell you, Nancy, what I’m going to tell you now. I thought, all these years, I was doing the right thing by not telling you… And I couldn’t tell you before… for one very good reason.’
‘Mother, what are you going on about? What is it you never told me?’ Nancy glanced at Mum, Daisy and me.
‘I think, Mum, that Madge blames herself for your father’s death.’ Mum was trying to speak softly to Nancy, trying to get her to listen to what Madge had to say.
‘He was a common petty burglar,’ Nancy snapped. ‘And a murderer to boot. And I’ve had to live with the shame of knowing my father stole from businesses around Midhope all my life.’
‘Nancy, darling, your father adored you. You were the apple of his eye. He stole from others in order that you and I could have the things he thought we deserved.’
‘Deserved?’ Nancy knocked back the remains of the pudding wine and reached down the table for what was left of a bottle of Sauvignon Blan
c. ‘Like some latter-day Robin Hood? And did he wear green tights and a funny hat when he went a-burgling?’
Nancy, I could see, was getting drunk as well as angry.
‘As I said, Nancy,’ Madge was having difficulty getting out the words and had to stop talking to drink some water, ‘as I said, Arthur adored you, but Nancy… Nancy, he wasn’t your father.’
‘James,’ Daisy and I both said together. ‘James was Granny Nancy’s dad.’
I have to give Nancy her due. She just said icily, ‘And who the hell might James be? Anyone I know?’
‘He was the love of my life. The only man I ever loved.’ Madge was crying now, great fat tears rolling down her lined face. ‘I’m sorry Nancy, I shouldn’t have kept it from you, but I was really given no choice.’
‘Madge,’ I went over to her and took her hand. ‘You don’t have to do this now.’
‘Oh yes she does.’ Nancy was livid. ‘She can’t just tell me the man I thought was my father wasn’t, without some explanation. Oh God, Mother, don’t tell me this James was another criminal, worse than Arthur. How many policemen did this one murder?’
‘Squadron Leader Viscount James Montgomery-West was no criminal.’ Madge sat up ramrod straight. ‘And I will tell you why I married Arthur Booth, and not your real father, Nancy.’
*
‘Madge, darling, come and sit down.’
‘Sit down?’ Madge turned in surprise at Fran’s words. ‘And have Briscoe after me for abandoning the sinking Yorkshire puds?’ She laughed at her own wit and carried on beating the creamy batter.
‘Madge, just leave it…’ Fran glanced towards Sergeant Briscoe, who nodded her assent, indicating she should separate Madge from her task.
‘Fran, what is it? Not James? Please, not James. Say it’s not him?’ The wooden spoon with which she’d been intent on beating lumps from the batter fell to the floor, spattering drops in an arc around it. Automaton-like, Madge put one foot in front of the other as Fran took her hand and pulled her gently onto a chair in the deserted dining room. There was a buzzing in her ears and yet she could hear every other sound from within the training school: pans crashing to the floor from a shelf in the kitchen; one of the WAAF’s loud laughter from somewhere outside the dining room, intensified and magnified until she shook her head to dispel the noise.
Coming Home To Holly Close Farm Page 23