Seven Week Itch

by Victoria Corby

  I looked at him, startled, and laughed reluctantly.

  ‘What does he think of this place?’

  ‘He hasn’t seen it yet. I doubt he’ll be impressed, country cottages aren’t Arnaud’s style.’ I suppressed a rather disloyal thought that at least he’d be able to walk through the doors here without ducking, unlike Hamish. Rose’s heightism must be catching. ‘He’s coming here next weekend so I’ll find out then.’

  ‘Good God, you aren’t intending to take someone like that to Rose’s charity evening, are you?’ Hamish asked.

  I too had balked at the vision of the combination of Arnaud’s Parisian chic and a fork supper when he’d rung to say he’d got appointments in London on Monday week so what about coming to see me on the Saturday before. ‘I haven’t got a choice. Rose has threatened me with disembowelling if I’m not there to sell raffle tickets.’

  I hadn’t dared tell Arnaud about it yet, reckoning that, like injections, it would hurt less if he didn’t know it was coming, especially as he’d informed me he’d checked his Michelin guide and though there weren’t any starred restaurants locally he’d discovered one with a good reputation. ‘He’ll love going to the house, and it’ll give him an insight into English country events, something to talk about when he goes back to Paris,’ I said, hoping without expectation that this would be enough to make up for missing out on the subtle delicacies of Rushton Hall’s dining room.

  ‘I’ve been press-ganged into helping with the bar,’ said Hamish, putting the photo frame back down again. ‘I doubt there’s anyone Rose knows locally who’s being allowed to simply come to this thing in peace and enjoy themselves. I trust your Arnaud isn’t going to be too sniffy about the wine.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘He’s French, of course he is.’

  CHAPTER 13

  Hamish’s sister lived on the other side of Lincoln, in a rambling farmhouse which had been built for serviceability rather than beauty, and was as unfazed to have two extra for lunch as he had promised. She bore a distinct resemblance to him, being tall with the same rich-brown hair and heavily lidded eyes, though luckily for her she didn’t have his craggy nose or his big bones. She also had little of her brother’s reserve for she was looking at me with a frank interest that made me wonder uneasily if she’d got the wrong end of the stick about why I was here.

  ‘How nice to meet you, Susie, I’ve heard all about you,’ she said warmly, hoisting a flaxen-haired toddler onto her hip. You have? I thought, shooting a quick look at Hamish. His resigned expression said this was a mere fishing expedition. She was extremely good at it though, in the short time it took to lead us indoors she’d already found out how I’d ended up working for Stephen, ‘Hamish’s introduction, I see…’

  Hamish cast his eyes to heaven. We were in a large, messy kitchen, warm and welcoming with the heat from a brick-red Aga and a very good smell coming from a large saucepan. A huge pinboard covered in notices took centre stage on one wall, fairly orderly heaps of papers were stacked alongside a telephone on the dresser, two miniature chairs and a table were pushed to one side, a fat black and white cat slept on one of the chairs and children’s art was proudly displayed on every available vertical surface

  ‘How’s the house?’ Gina asked turning her attention back to Hamish. ‘Have you had the central heating fixed yet?’

  ‘It’s nearly June, Gina, and I’m hardly going to die of cold so getting the heating fixed is hardly an urgent priority,’ he said in a resigned voice, glaring at me as I smothered a giggle. He adroitly avoided more questions by holding out a beribboned, elaborately wrapped present ‘Happy late birthday.’

  ‘I thought you’d forgotten all about it,’ she exclaimed, putting the toddler down and reverting to being aged about six as she turned the package over and over, feeling it and shaking it slightly to see if it rattled, then carefully undid each bow on the ribbons and lifted the sellotape up without tearing the gold embossed paper. ‘Oh, Hamish, it’s gorgeous,’ she breathed, as she held up an enormously long silk scarf in shimmering shades of green, iridescent blue and indigo. She wrapped it twice around her neck, leaving the ends to dangle and make a fine contrast with her elderly sweatshirt and Levi’s with a paint smudge on the knee. The brilliant colours of the scarf looked stunning against the warm shades of her olive skin and brown hair.

  She was preening in front of a mirror when the back door slid open and a balding, pleasant-faced man in his late thirties sneaked in. Half hidden behind him was an object covered in so much mud it was barely recognisable as a child. Gina spun round with an outraged shriek. ‘That,’ she said to me, ‘is Tony, my husband, and I presume that-’ she pointed in open-mouthed disbelief - ‘is my eldest child.’

  ‘He fell in the ditch,’ Tony explained laconically. ‘And then, as he was already dirty, he decided to do some rolling about. We hoped we could get him cleaned up before you noticed.’

  Gina rolled her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Did you?’ she asked grimly.

  ‘The mud’s all squishy,’ the child offered, an unrepentant grin showing startlingly white teeth against his mud-coloured face.

  Hamish leant towards him, though I noticed he prudently kept out of touching range. ‘You should have taken your shoes off, Benjy. It feels even better when the mud squelches through your toes.’

  ‘Hamish!’ exclaimed his outraged sister whipping off her precious scarf and folding it carefully before pointing dramatically at the door to the hall. ‘It’s bad enough Tony allowing him to fall in the ditches, without you encouraging it. Right, young man, into the shower with you. No, not upstairs, unless you feel like scraping mud off the stair carpet yourself. The shower in the laundry room.’

  ‘Wouldn’t the washing machine on the hot cycle be a better idea?’ asked Hamish.

  His sister cast him a dirty look and took her errant child out of the room, gingerly making sure no part of her came in actual contact with his wet and messy exterior. Shortly afterwards, we could hear protesting yells and bad-tempered motherly comments drifting down the passage. Tony shuffled his feet and said, ‘I’m thinking perhaps I might get on with chopping the wood. Never too soon to get next winter’s supplies ready.’

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed Hamish solemnly. ‘You might not have time to do it later.’

  There was the sound of a door being flung open and Gina saying, ‘I do not want to have to change your clothes again today. Understood?’

  ‘Maybe we should go to the woodshed now,’ Tony said hastily, opening the fridge and getting out two cans of beer. ‘You get thirsty chopping wood,’ he informed me with an innocent expression as he sidled out of the door. Footsteps came up the passage and Hamish followed him in short order.

  ‘Have they left you on your own?’ asked Gina with a disapproving frown as she came in with a clean, though not noticeably subdued, child who went over to a painted toybox and began sorting out bits of Lego as if he hadn’t been yelling his head off two minutes ago.

  ‘They’re chopping wood,’ I explained.

  She laughed. ‘Tony needn’t think he can escape the wifely wrath that easily. He’s on extra washing-up duties for at least a week for this. Two weeks if when I go to the shed all I find is beer cans and no newly cut wood,’ she added with the voice of experience.

  She whizzed around the kitchen, making a salad, putting a huge pan of water on to boil for spaghetti, whisking up egg whites for a Queen of Puddings and chatting to me as she worked. I’d been afraid she’d be asking awkward questions about Hamish, like how come I’d just happened to be there when he made up his mind to come and visit her, but fortunately she was far more interested in talking about Stephen, who had been her first love. ‘He was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen, completely knocked Champion the Wonder Horse off his podium from the moment I saw him,’ she declared, whisk momentarily stopped as she relived the intensity of a twelve-year-old’s passion. ‘Oh, was I smitten! This girl, at least, was quite prepared to make passes at guys who wore
glasses, not that I was absolutely sure what a pass involved. I used to pray each night I’d grow a bosom and quickly, because Alastair, our oldest brother, was always teasing Stephen about how much he fancied Lucy White, who was the local femme fatale and was very well endowed indeed. And when they didn’t sprout overnight I stuffed a couple of apples in my vest and hoped Stephen wouldn’t realise they weren’t real. He didn’t notice them. Hamish did though,’ she added in a darkling voice.

  I laughed, guessing what had happened. I know brothers. ‘So what happened?’

  She smiled wryly. ‘I saw Stephen kissing Lucy behind the potting shed and I thought it looked yukky. Even worse than when we did mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in life-saving classes. So I gave up on love for several years and went back to regarding boys as an inferior species to be put down on every possible occasion.’

  ‘And you didn’t fall in love with Stephen all over again once you realised it might be rather nice to go behind the potting shed with him?’

  She laughed. ‘Wouldn’t it just! No, that particular flame had been firmly blown out, not that Stephen ever showed any signs of wanting to do any such things with me, worse luck.’ Her eyes danced. ‘There’s something about men like him that arouses all your protective instincts - and a lot more - don’t you find?’

  ‘Well, actually, I’d rather find a man who feels protective about me,’ I confessed, ‘but they’re in rather short supply, on account of the fact most men can’t feel protective about a woman who’s taller than they are.’

  ‘You aren’t that tall, there must be lots of men bigger than you,’ she protested, smiling. To my horror, I could almost see a thought bubble appear above her head. ‘Like Hamish,’ she said, eyeing me speculatively.

  I fought to keep my face expressionless as I remembered all he’d done for me last night. By any standards it was protective. Looked after me, given me his own bed - and protected his own back when he decided not to risk carrying me across the green, I thought with a smothered bubble of laughter.

  ‘Stephen likes his women good and bossy like Liddy - good thing too,’ Gina continued, as if the conversation hadn’t momentarily veered sideways. ‘Can you imagine what he’d be like if he was shacked up with someone as disorganised as he is? He’d never get out of the door in the mornings.’

  ‘It hadn’t occurred to me there was much good to say about Liddy,’ I said, ‘but you’ve got a point.’

  ‘Oh, she isn’t too bad once you get to know her. And she may be a pain sometimes, but have you ever thought of what absolute hell Stephen must be to live with? I suspect half the time his vagueness is covering up that he simply doesn’t want to do something.’

  I nodded in agreement. That had occurred to me too.

  ‘I wonder if Liddy really cares about her career that much,’ said Gina, as she spooned the pudding into a bowl, ‘and if she isn’t refusing to commit because she’s afraid she’ll have a lifetime of being married to a man who’ll continually “forget” to get up for the baby in the night or go to the supermarket when he’s promised to.’

  I laughed, thinking I must tell Amanda this insight into Liddy’s character.

  ‘So how long have you known Hamish?’ Gina asked casually as if this was a natural progression from talking about Stephen and Liddy.

  ‘Since the wedding, or the rehearsal, to be precise.’

  ‘Not long then,’ she said meaningfully. ‘What do you think of his house?’ she added almost as an afterthought. I could visualise the points being ticked off in her mind as I made some vaguely polite reply - he got her the job, she’s been to his house, he’s brought her to lunch - and they all added up to one seemingly logical conclusion. Did Hamish really expect his sister to believe that the female whom he’d sprung on her for lunch was merely a casual art-loving acquaintance? I certainly wouldn’t fall for that one if my brother turned up with an even half-decent female, and if she was positively indecent it’d be even more likely they had something going. Was I Hamish’s smoke screen, so he could get on with his real love affair with Merial away from the searchlight gaze of his female relations? Possibly. It was exactly the sort of thing my own unmarried brother would do.

  I’d have got cross about being used if it hadn’t occurred to me that after the way he’d looked after me last night Hamish was justified in thinking that I owed him one. My indignant guns well and truly spiked, and by myself too, I could hardly inform Gina that she was barking up entirely the wrong tree if she thought I’d bring myself to lay a single finger on her Machiavellian brother, which would have been rude as well as not necessarily true, I realised uneasily. I looked around wildly for a safer, innocuous topic and found it in a small drawing hanging next to the fridge.

  It was of Tony relaxing in a chair, with a very small baby balanced on one arm and a larger child leaning up against the other. They were watching something out of the sketch intently. ‘Is this one of yours?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s Tony introducing the children to the joys of “boys’ things” - spending an hour and a half watching Arsenal get trounced. Josh was all of three weeks old. His favourite tape now is a complication of football chants. I ask you. Whatever happened to nursery rhymes?’

  ‘At least they haven’t been watching the rugby internationals,’ I said.

  She looked at me in awe. ‘I hadn’t thought of rugby songs. I don’t think I’ll ever complain about “Herewego, Herewego” sung in a loud monotone ever again.’

  We began to talk about her paintings, a nice safe topic, and I was fascinated to see how she lapped up my unfeigned praise. I would have thought that with a talent like hers she would have got used to compli­ments, even become a bit blasé about them, but not a bit of it. ‘I’ll take you around the studio after lunch if you like,’ she said, looking delighted when I assured her I would like very much. ‘Which of my paintings have you seen?’

  ‘The ones Hamish has. They’re wonderful.’

  ‘Mm, I liked those ones too. They were a house-warming present.’

  Too late, I remembered where they were hanging. I hoped it was blissful oblivion and not tactfulness that made Gina go blithely on, ‘Heaven knows he needed something for the house. He brought virtually nothing from his flat in London. Well, there wasn’t much to bring really, apart from that enormous bed of his,’ she continued, while I turned my head to study the cover of the current Farmer’s Weekly with acute assumed interest until I could be sure I didn’t still look ridiculously self-conscious. ‘He claimed his flat was a shrine to minimalism, but I reckon he couldn’t be bothered to go out and buy any furnishing.’

  Tony put his head around the kitchen door cautiously, testing the atmosphere, his face creasing with relief as Gina smiled at him and he saw he’d been forgiven. He extracted a couple more beers from the fridge for himself and Hamish, announcing with a certain amount of pride that he’d split the whole pile of logs and, if she didn’t believe him, she could go and look for herself. ‘Has Gina told you she’s got an exhibition coming up near you?’ Tony asked Hamish. ‘In Frampton, in a place run by a friend of hers, the Stable Gallery.’

  ‘I know it,’ I said. ‘It’s the other end of the High Street to the office. It has all sorts of craftsman-made things, doesn’t it? I’ve never dared to go in, it looks like the sort of place where they charge you for entry.’

  ‘People who live around Frampton have a lot of money to spend. Sally’s always amazed at what she can shift,’ Gina said, with a cynically satisfied smile. ‘I’m hoping we might do quite well. You’ll both come to the opening thrash, won’t you? Lots of booze and eats, and a special offer for the first evening - you’ll be allowed to leave without buying anything.’

  After a protracted lunch we wandered over to look at the studio, which had been made out of the old stables and still had the original wooden stall partitions down one end and iron hay-mangers halfway up the wall. ‘Very useful for stacking the smaller canvases,’ said Gina. I wandered along, leafing through canvases
stacked up against one wall, mostly landscapes though there were a few figurative scenes as well. ‘Those aren’t very good,’ she said, making a face. ‘I only keep them so I can reuse the canvas someday.’ I thought they were lovely but when she took me over to show me the much smaller pile she was actually proud of even I, with my limited ability for art appreciation, could see these were a completely different kettle of fish. I would have sold my grandmother for one of those, both grandmothers actually, as I had a feeling that one granny probably wouldn’t fetch enough.

  After a few minutes the toddler, Josh, who was being held by Tony well away from the tactile delights of those nice squeezy tubes of paint, began to wriggle restlessly and demand to be put down. ‘Don’t you dare,’ Gina said, without looking up from the knot she was unpicking on a folio of drawings. ‘The last time he got loose in here he scribbled over a whole pad of art paper and it was a week before I could get into town to buy a new one.’

  Josh opened his mouth to roar his protest at not being allowed to wreak havoc. ‘Why don’t we go and see the pony?’ suggested Hamish.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Tony, rushing Josh out before he could decide whether he approved of this plan or not.

  ‘No wonder Hamish was so scornful of my prowess at controlling the pages at Rose’s wedding,’ I said. ‘If I’d been able to think of diversions as quickly as that we’d never have had the Penknife Incident.’