‘Oh yes,’ said Chum, ‘you met my cousin Rollo at some swanky party.’
Polly looked at him, her mouth open in surprise. She shut it quickly.
‘Did he tell you?’ she asked. But she hadn’t told him her name, so how could he have?
‘No. I read it on your blog this morning,’ said Chum, turning towards her for a moment with a very cheeky grin.
Polly looked at him with her mouth open.
‘You read my blog?’ she said.
‘Well, if you chat up my cousin at parties, you’ve got to expect me to keep an eye on what you’re up to.’
How embarrassing. It had never occurred to her that Chum would look at FragrantCloud.
‘I didn’t chat him up,’ said Polly, feeling herself going pink. ‘But I did ask him if he was related to you.’ She started to giggle. ‘He looks so like you . . . a slightly younger version.’
She play-punched Chum’s bicep and found it was as firm as Rollo’s forearm had been.
‘And better dressed, no doubt,’ said Chum. ‘Better looking, richer, more famous . . . You should be on a walk with him.’
‘I haven’t got enough legs,’ said Polly, ‘and I wouldn’t look good doing that sideways dancing thing.’
Chum laughed. Proper laughter, head back, loud noise. Polly felt shy again, though happy she could make someone laugh like that.
‘So what did he tell you about me?’ he asked after a moment, sounding more serious.
‘That your fathers are brothers – so you’re cousins.’
He glanced at her again, eyes narrowed.
‘That was all?’ he asked.
Polly hesitated for a moment. ‘He said I should google you.’
Chum laughed again, but more of a snort than the lovely free guffaw earlier.
‘Did you?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she answered. ‘It was only last night and I’ve had a busy morning.’
He turned to her again – she wished he wouldn’t, as they hurtled towards a blind bend – smiling, but with a wistful look in his eye.
‘I’ll save you the bother,’ he said. ‘If you want to know anything about me – just ask.’
Polly hesitated for the moment. There were lots of things she wanted to know. Like, why does everyone keep saying ‘poor Chum’? Why aren’t you married to a lovely horsey posh woman? Why don’t you have lots of lovely horsey posh children? How come you’re free to go for a walk with me on a Thursday morning with one hour’s notice?
But tempting though it was, she knew such a line of inquiry would inevitably lead to a similar interrogation about her own life and she really didn’t want to go there. The whole point of this walk was to block out all the complications and confusions of the David mess that Lori’s email had brought back into sharp focus. Not to have to answer questions that would force her to think about it.
‘OK,’ she said, ‘tell me what you love about working with horses.’
He turned quickly to look at her again and then grinned. He’d clearly been expecting something different and was just as relieved to be off the hook as she was.
‘Do you ride?’ he asked.
‘I did, a bit, as a girl,’ said Polly. ‘I had pony posters on my walls when I was ten. The normal thing.’
‘Well, then you’ll know how satisfying it is when an animal so much bigger and stronger than you are understands what you would like it do to – and does it. Happily. Then scale that up to working with them from when they’re very young. Having a relationship with an animal that close is very rewarding. And I just like being around them. They’re so much less complicated than human beings.’
‘That makes sense,’ said Polly. ‘I’m starting to feel like that about Digger.’
‘Starting to?’ said Chum, and Polly realised she’d accidentally put herself in dangerous territory. The last thing she wanted to get into was why she was suddenly spending more time with the dog.
‘Oh, you know,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I just love the stinky old mutt more and more, that’s all.’
‘Got it,’ said Chum. ‘So tell me about your work. I know you go to very glamorous parties, but what else does a perfume blogger do?’
She gave him a very potted version, which he seemed satisfied with, but even before she’d finished talking, she was processing the idea that Chum had read the blog and wondering which posts he might have looked at.
She did a mental run-through of the most recent ones and then it hit her: the one on university days. Oh, no! All that stuff was about his crowd. And him.
Her head whipped round to look at him and he glanced back with his bemused, slightly sad smile. He hadn’t read it, she decided. He would have said something or teased her about it if he had.
That was a relief. Big time. Especially because of the last bit, about the kiss. That time they’d kissed. In the sand dunes, the night of the beach bonfire.
A secret tryst, while everyone else was skinny-dipping, distracted with tearing off their clothes and racing into the sea.
‘Come with me,’ he’d whispered, taking her hand in the dark.
She shivered, remembering.
‘Are you cold?’ asked Chum, snapping her back into the present. ‘Too bad if you are, because the heating’s pretty much broken in this thing, but the walk will warm us up. It’s mostly uphill. A big hill.’
‘No, I’m fine,’ said Polly, hoping he’d forgotten it had ever happened. He’d been such a heart throb up there, he probably kissed so many girls it was all just a blur to him. And it had been just a kiss between them, nothing more – although not a peck on the cheek by any means: a full-on snog on the damp sand. She could so clearly remember the softness of his shirt and that slight smell of horse . . .
She sat up straight, consciously putting the brakes on that line of thought. It was a sweet memory of youthful days, but they were different people now.
It was a relief when he pulled off the road, a couple of minutes later, into what Polly was surprised to see was a proper car park containing other cars, with National Trust signs and public loos. There were lots of dogs too; it was clearly a popular spot.
‘Don’t worry about the people,’ said Chum. ‘I know all kinds of paths through here they’ve got no idea about. We’ll have our own private bespoke walk.’
He jumped out, then paused, tapping his phone.
‘Setting your turn-back-now-or-die alarm?’ asked Polly.
‘Yep,’ he said. ‘Ninety minutes each way. Can you hack it?’
‘Lead on,’ she said.
For the first fifteen minutes or so they passed a lot of other walkers, mostly with dogs, so there was endless stopping for butt-sniffing, and Polly couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed, despite what Chum had said.
They were out in lovely unspoiled landscape, not farmland like the other two walks they’d done. But with all the people and the fussy signposts telling them how far they were from the next fussy signpost, it felt oddly suburban. The air was beautifully fresh, were surrounded by proper ancient deciduous woodland, but it wasn’t getting her in the zone.
Maybe the first two walks had been a fluke, thought Polly, suddenly regretting her impulsive decision to text Chum. The novelty of seeing him after so many years had suspended them in a little bubble of their shared youth before; now she couldn’t help feeling she was just out for a slightly peculiar walk with a total stranger she had very little in common with.
She plodded on, trying to look as though she was enjoying it, until after a few more minutes Chum suddenly struck out to the right, up a steep bank.
‘Are you all right?’ he said, turning to look at her. ‘I know it was a bit dreary back there, but it gets better from now on. Trust me. I know this country.’
‘Is this family land again?’ she asked.
‘Used to be,’ said Chum. ‘I roamed all around here as a boy, on horses and on foot. My brother and I used to go on great expeditions.’
‘But it’s not your land any m
ore?’ asked Polly, more to make conversation than anything.
‘No, my father sold this part off to the National Trust years ago. Nothing tragic, he just didn’t feel we needed it. It wasn’t productive and he wasn’t one of those landowners who believed in having as much acreage as possible, no matter what was on it. If he couldn’t grow something, or graze something on it, or see it from the house, he thought it was better to put the care of it into other hands for the public to get the use of it. He was forward thinking like that.’
‘Presumably, he could have shot things on this land,’ said Polly, as a bird flapped out of a tree ahead of them.
Chum laughed.
‘Way too many trees for shooting,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t be able to see anything.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Polly. ‘The only dead birds I have any dealings with are plucked and wrapped in plastic.’
‘You should come on a shoot sometime,’ said Chum.
‘You should come to a fragrance launch,’ she said and he turned to look at her, clearly checking to see if she was joking. She was.
‘Good point,’ he said. ‘Fish out of water and all that.’
As he spoke, they came out of the trees onto a bridle path, looking out across the tops of the woods they’d just walked through, no one else in sight. Polly stopped for a moment, savouring the silence and feeling the sense of ease she had so craved coming over her again.
‘Oh, this is more like it,’ she said.
Chum grinned at her.
‘I should have warned you about the Surbiton part of the walk. Is that what Hampstead Heath is like? Nature in check?’
‘Well, you do pass other people and dogs, but it has an odd kind of wildness to it, because it’s open country on the edge of a major city. It’s hard to explain, but if you know where to go, you can feel like you might run into a highwayman at any moment.’
Chum smiled.
‘That’s a quaint image,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’ll take me and Artemis for a walk up there one day. I’d like to see it with a local.’
Polly was surprised.
‘That would be my pleasure,’ she said. ‘Let me know when you’re heading down next. Do you come to London much?’
‘A bit,’ he said. ‘I’ll come up to town occasionally to see friends, or buy something, although you can do so much of that online these days. Mostly to see lawyers, really.’
Polly smiled at ‘up to town’. It was always ‘up’ to his lot, she remembered, even though Hertfordshire was north of London.
Then the last thing he’d said sank in. Lawyers. What was that about?
She had a strong suspicion it would be connected with ‘poor Chum’, but she wasn’t going to ask. This walk was a refuge from reality – his and hers – and she had a strong inkling he appreciated that as much as she did. Determined to stay in the zone, she concentrated on the rhythm of her feet, one in front of the other, as the going got harder up the gradual incline.
‘It gets a bit steep here,’ said Chum. ‘Not too much for you?’
Polly shook her head.
‘I want to know what’s at the top,’ she said.
The vegetation was thinning out and she was aware of a wider expanse of sky opening up ahead. Finally there were no trees, just grass, bushes and big rocks, and she could see the apex they were aiming for and then, at last, they reached the summit.
‘Wow,’ she said, coming to a standstill.
Spread out before her was the most amazing view: miles of rolling countryside, crossing what looked like a glacial plain to more hills in the distance.
‘Good, isn’t it?’ said Chum.
‘You really do know all the best walks,’ said Polly. ‘This is fantastic.’
‘Do you want to have a seat for a moment?’ he asked. He checked his phone. ‘We’ve got twelve minutes before we need to start back, so we can have a breather.’
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small square of plaid with waxed cotton on the back, and spread it on the ground in front of a boulder, gesturing towards it gallantly.
‘Sit on that and you won’t get a wet bum,’ he said.
‘What about you?’ she asked.
‘I’ll pull my jacket down and hope.’
Polly sat on the rug and shifted over to the edge.
‘There’s room for you on here as well,’ she said, patting the space beside her. ‘One buttock, anyway.’
‘Well, if you insist,’ said Chum, and sat down next to her.
Polly was aware how close they were – their bodies touching from the shoulder to the hip – and tried to ignore it.
‘Want one of these?’ asked Chum, pulling two apples out of his inside pocket.
‘Were they in your dead-animal holding zone?’ she asked him.
‘’Fraid so,’ he said, poking around on the other side. ‘And this.’
He passed her a water bottle and she unscrewed it and took a deep drink before giving it back. Then she leaned against the rock, blood still humming in her veins from the long stretch uphill, and gazed out over the view, thinking about nothing at all. Just the clear air, the view, the crunch of Chum eating his apple, and his warm shoulder against hers.
For a moment she felt she just existed, like the rock she was leaning against and the grass she was sitting on. No thoughts. No whats, hows or whys. Just being.
Then, as she looked out over the miles of splendid country laid out before them, something caught her eye. A huge grey stone building in a kind of U shape, with other buildings coming off it. A veritable forest of chimneys.
It was a house, she realised. A very big house.
Could it be the house? The one Anaïs Anaïs cowbag and her friends at St Andrews had been so so obsessed with? The famous ‘stately’?
‘Is that your family’s house?’ asked Polly, pointing.
‘Yes,’ said Chum, a tightness coming into his voice.
‘Gosh,’ said Polly, ‘so it really is the full-on stately deal, then? I remember some people at St Andrews getting very excited about that. Girl people. I never really understood what they were talking about. Or cared. Sorry.’
She took a bite out of her apple and turned to look at him. It felt so good to be real about all that.
‘That’s what I always liked about you,’ said Chum. ‘You weren’t looking people up in Burke’s bloody Peerage like some of the girls up there.’
‘I did consult it a couple of times,’ said Polly. ‘In the university library. I was writing an essay about the Civil War and needed to know the dates of certain investitures.’
Chum laughed.
‘You must have been the only person there who used it as an academic resource. Did you notice how well-thumbed it was?’
‘I did, actually,’ said Polly. ‘I thought a lot of other historians were using it.’
Chum smiled. Polly had another drink of water and they carried on eating their apples.
‘So, go on then,’ she said, ‘tell me about it. What’s it called? When was it built? What’s it like to live in a house with – let me see – one, two, three major wings and two smaller ones?’
‘It’s called Hanley Hall. It was built in the early seventeenth century, and growing up in a house like that was . . . well, I don’t know what it would be like to grow up anywhere else, but it was pretty bloody good.’
‘And your dad was an Earl or something?’
‘Yes,’ said Chum. ‘My father was the ninth Earl. He died when I was twenty-five and my mother married Bill.’
They were silent for a moment, Chum looking straight at the house, a fixed expression on his face that Polly hadn’t seen before.
‘So you don’t live in it any more?’ she asked tentatively. He’d clearly brought her up here to show it to her; it seemed only polite to ask questions about it.
‘No,’ he said, slowly, not looking at her.
‘So who’s the Earl now, then?’ she said.
‘Well, my brother was,’ said Ch
um, sighing deeply.
‘Was?’ said Polly, then, seeing the expression on Chum’s face, she stopped. The conversation had gone very quickly from being a pleasant chat to clearly being highly distressing to him.
He got to his feet and put his hand out for her.
‘I think we’ve just about had our twelve minutes’ break, we’d better start back.’
She let him pull her up and when she was on her feet he didn’t let go of her hand immediately, holding it in his own for a moment, looking down at it. Then he gave it a gentle pat and let go, briskly zipping up his jacket.
‘All that stuff . . . the house, my family,’ he said, looking very tired for a moment. ‘I know I said if you wanted to know anything about me, just to ask, but now we’re up here I really can’t be arsed to go into it. Rollo was right – google it.’
Chum dropped Polly back at Rockham Park and she decided to go straight up and surprise her mother. They could have dinner together, perhaps look at some more photos, and she’d stay the night. It would be fun.
Daphne answered the door in her silk kimono, a green face mask on, her hair freshly done.
‘Oh, Polly, how lovely. I didn’t know you were coming, did I?’ she asked, just a hint of uncertainty in her voice.
‘No,’ said Polly. ‘I thought I’d surprise you for fun.’
‘Well, that’s very sweet,’ said Daphne, ‘but I’m afraid I’m going out this evening. I’m just getting ready.’
‘That’s good to hear,’ said Polly, happy to know Daphne had a social life, but just a little concerned it might be another imaginary embassy ball. ‘What’s on?’
‘We have a film night every Thursday,’ said Daphne, heading into her bedroom and standing at the wardrobe, flicking through her options. ‘It’s very interesting, because one of the chaps who lives here used to be a film reviewer for the papers and he gives us a little talk beforehand about the making of the film, the actors and all that, and then afterwards we have a glass of wine and discuss it. He’s got some very good stories, and it turns out we’ve known some of the same people. It’s great fun.’
She pulled out a dress and held it up against herself in front of the wardrobe’s mirrored door, smiled with satisfaction and laid it on the bed.
The Scent of You Page 19