The Country Lovers

by Walker, Fiona

  Until Mack added, ‘And the plan is for us to come up here with them.’

  The spike of adrenaline felt like a heart attack, but Pax quickly talked herself down. She knew him well enough. That was exactly the reaction he wanted. He wanted to frighten her. She dug her nails tight in her palms.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ His voice came through the loudspeakers, like a radio play. Please make this a radio play.

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘It will be a fresh start, Tishy. Mum and Dad understand we’re going through a tough patch; they are being extremely generous by making this offer.’

  ‘How long have you known about it?’ She was trying hard not to scream the words. Had they planned this all along, Mack and his parents? Muir and Mairi were never generous. They saw it as a weakness.

  ‘They mentioned it a few weeks ago.’ The phone was muffled, and she heard him shout, ‘All right, keep your hair on!’ as someone banged on the train toilet door. ‘We were going to tell you in Edinburgh, but now you need some space to work through this – crisis, or whatever it is.’ The familiar sneer in the voice. ‘That changes things completely, doesn’t it?’

  ‘How so?’ She would have said no whatever had happened. Her roots stretched between here and London, shoots everywhere, closely entwined with others. She and Mack had fallen in love in London. The year after they’d married, living just outside Inverness in another barely habitable restoration project, had been amongst the loneliest of her life.

  ‘Oliver needs stability.’

  At the mention of the name, she couldn’t speak, the lump in her throat choking her.

  Mack knew precisely how much she hated him calling their son that. Like many oldest children, he’d been christened with a traditional family forename, shared with a paternal great-grandfather on whom Mack had doted.

  It’s Kes, she wanted to shout through the suffocating neck-hold. His name is Kes.

  A white van had parked by the Memorial Hall entrance from which two bull-necked men were unloading disco equipment.

  Mack’s voice softened winningly. ‘The boy loves Scotland.’

  Finally the throat-lock released, her voice flat and artificial, the familiar steely calm framing it. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Mack. I know this is just you trying to punish me, but it’s gone far enough. We have a business to run down here, a home here, and Kes goes to school here. That’s his stability.’

  ‘Marianne says she’ll have a word with the head at her boys’ pre-prep. It’s a superb school.’ So his sister was in on it too, with her sideways smiles, always acting like a one-woman mouthpiece for the Scottish Tourist Board. The Forsyth clan were quorate. ‘We have to put Kes first, wee bird. Think of the benefits.’

  Mack started talking in his corporate presentation voice, turning crib notes into unhurried, self-assured conviction. He dropped just enough poison bullet points in amongst the plus points to paralyse her – seen too many messy divorces not to appreciate the stable family, his stay-at-home sister and mother on tap for childcare, outstanding schooling with close cousins. Compare that to her own mother’s history of abandonment, her father’s tragic end, the mess Pax had made of things after abandoning the Bardswolds for London. ‘You’ll always be better with Kes and me, Tishy. I saved you, remember.’

  If there was one thing guaranteed to humiliate her, it was that.

  He went on, slick as always, quick to point out that once their portfolio was sold – a small matter of three overspecced luxury barn conversions and a half-finished rectory, all majority-owned by investors and the bank – they’d be wise to cut their losses. The Cotswold exercise had proved a much lower return than anticipated in the current climate. He had good contacts in Scotland, the surveying work guaranteed to supplement restoration.

  ‘What if I don’t want to live with your parents? What if I’d rather trap my nipples in a garlic press? I don’t want to move to Scotland, Mack. The purpose of the Cotswold exercise was also to be close to my family, remember?’

  ‘Nobody’s forcing you to come,’ he said icily. ‘In fact, nobody is inviting you until you straighten yourself out. When I say my parents have invited us to live with them,’ he went on with measured relish, ‘I mean just Kes and myself for now.’ She heard the acid sting in his voice, the same tone he used to tell buyers he didn’t like they’d been gazumped. ‘You made it perfectly clear on Christmas Day that you no longer want to be a part of this marriage.’

  ‘C’mon, Mack. I was angry. We’d had a lot to drink.’

  ‘Your alcoholism certainly doesn’t help.’

  ‘I am no more an alcoholic than you are.’

  ‘Perhaps a trial separation is exactly what we both need. Sort your head out, wee girl – I can’t carry you any longer.’

  ‘You’ve never carried me, Mack. Not even over the threshold.’ Stay calm. Stay calm.

  ‘You’re a drunk, Tishy. You said it yourself.’

  ‘I can stop any time I like.’

  ‘Do it tonight. Getting sober is a minimum requirement.’

  ‘And you being less of a total arsehole is mine. But you can’t do that, can you?’

  He rang off and she thumped the dashboard and screamed, making the white van men turn and stare. He was winding her up, she knew it, but she hated him for it. The radio station she had been listening to kicked back in on the speakers, churning out an old ballad that made her catch a sob.

  White hot with humiliated anger, Pax messaged her friend Lizzie. I officially hate him!

  Have you left him yet? she pinged back eagerly.

  Not exactly.

  Do it, darling. A girl-power salute GIF followed.

  Which was easy to say from that happy place of Facebook shop fronts and buzzword answers.

  Yet Pax needed Lizzie now; she had to listen to wisdom, however watered down by distance and memes. Lizzie was one of Pax’s small and exclusive circle dating back to her single life, mostly childhood friends, not the couple-culture cronies garnered through marriage, children and rugby. They’d been junior riders in the British team a lifetime ago. Lizzie had remained with horses, marrying a professional rider with a wandering eye. Unable to turn a blind one to his flings forever, her marriage had finally fallen apart last year. She was a good sounding board, now in a happy place with a new lover, rebooted self-esteem and strong opinions.

  Ditch the bastard! Pax read, emojis lined up alongside her friend’s words. Best thing I ever did.

  But Lizzie didn’t have a five-year-old son who adored his dad. She didn’t have a business with her husband, debts up to their ears, and puritanical in-laws watching her every move. She hadn’t vowed to herself to stick with her marriage no matter what. She didn’t owe him like Pax owed Mack.

  The puppy in the boot let out an excited yap and Pax looked up as a very muddy Land Rover swung into the memorial hall car park, watching in the rear-view mirror as a broad-shouldered figure stepped out of it, smile as wide as the sky and eyes as blue, a gundog at each heel.

  Bay Austen, Compton Magna’s unofficial squire.

  Frantically mopping the last vestiges of tears, Pax summoned a bristly smile as a gloved hand rapped on the window. She slid it down a fraction and a delicious burst of waxed cotton and Penhaligon’s Quercus blew in.

  ‘Darling Pax! Greetings. If your New Year Resolution is to run away from all this bad weather and start a beach bar in Honolulu, thank goodness I’m just in time to join you.’

  ‘Bay.’

  Briefly in love as teenagers, now jaw-tighteningly cool with one another, their encounters were never comfortable. Bay, who flirted with everybody like an eager Labrador, still wanted to be forgiven. Pax, who found it too hard to forget, wanted him nowhere near.

  Even after more than a decade, being in his presence made all her pulses tighten with that first love hit of lost innocence and exquisite pain. It didn’t even help that he’d matured into such a country cliché, perfect bone structure and soulful blue eyes sitting far too exquisitely ab
ove the Schoffel fleece collars.

  The eyes darkened as they studied her own red-rimmed ones. ‘Pax, darling, are you okay?’

  ‘Winter cold. Highly infectious.’

  ‘Bad luck.’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’m late.’

  ‘Of course. Catch up properly soon.’

  ‘Yes.’ Never. How can one pick up where one left off when over a decade earlier she was so indescribably broken by him?

  Starting the engine, she set off at speed, clipping a dog litter bin in her haste to get away, and adding another dent to the car Mack liked to call ‘The Fiat Worse than Death’ in a bad Geordie accent. Less than five years old and already rusting and battle-scarred, the Italian fake Mini he’d bought her as an apology after writing off her beloved Golf wasn’t built to be parked on a flooded building site. Its exhaust, which had been threatening to fall off for weeks, sounded awful, blowing raspberries as she accelerated along Plum Run, rattled through Compton Magna and turned noisily into the stud drive.

  Lester was leading dun stallion, Cruisoe, back from his high-hedged field, creased old face lifting like a furled flag in a breeze at the sight of her car. He was a stickler for treating his favourites to the toughest love, and Pax had always been his favourite. In the same way he gave a sharp tug to the chifney bit in his mouth now to remind Cruisoe he had his back, he fixed her with a steely look.

  ‘We were expecting you first thing.’

  ‘Sorry about that. Been a bit under the weather.’ Shakes, headaches and tears, the usual morning call. ‘Is Mummy around?’

  ‘Mrs Ledwell’s already set off.’

  ‘Of course. For, er…?’

  ‘Lunch with friends over Wiltshire way.’ His wise old eyes stared, casting light on one of Pax’s recent blackouts: a phone conversation she’d only partially pieced together afterwards, remembering trying not to sound drunk, offering to help. She’d worried afterwards she might have dreamed it.

  ‘That’s it. She’s staying overnight there.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He looked disapproving.

  ‘I’m all yours, Lester.’

  ‘Fetch a brush.’ The creased face shifted into a warmer welcome. ‘And put that puppy in a stable. Not safe wandering round loose. You named it yet?’

  ‘What would you call him, Lester?’

  He watched as the deerhound rolled on its back beside Stubbs, gangly and compliant. ‘Not for me to say.’

  ‘Landseer maybe? Stubbs and Landseer make a good couple.’

  He huffed. ‘He the one paints all the dead deer?’

  ‘And lots of dogs. Granny had a sketch of a lurcher in her dressing room.’

  ‘Nothing but trouble, sight hounds.’

  ‘Mummy suggested I stay tonight.’ She remembered that much at least. ‘Brought a bottle of Laphroaig for old time’s sake.’ It had been her grandfather’s favourite malt. She wondered how soon they could crack it open. Being a keen hunt follower, Lester was probably old-school enthusiastic about daytime drinking.

  The creases ironed out more, blackcurrant eyes bright. ‘We’ll toast the Captain later; work to do first.’

  She followed him through the arch as he led Cruisoe back to his stable. From the opposite corner of the quadrangle came a great bellow of protest and a crashing of teeth against grille.

  Pax turned to look at the younger stallion her mother had brought to the stud, coal eyes burning in that luminescent pearl-pale face behind his stall bars, mythically fierce and far too terrifying to bribe with a carrot.

  ‘You leave that one!’ Lester barked, marching on. ‘The Irish lad’s welcome to him. Needs fetching from the airport this evening. Best you do it.’ He disappeared hurriedly into a foaling box.

  At first, Pax didn’t understand. Her head was still full of the argument with Mack, the overwhelming need for a drink. She counted the minutes down as they worked their way around the familiar tasks with barrows, buckets, brushes and brawn, grateful for physical work to keep her earthed. Don’t think about Kes. It wasn’t until they’d swept the cobbles of both yards that Lester broke the news that the jet-set pro rider her mother had hired was arriving at Birmingham airport that night. ‘I have the flight number written down.’

  ‘Can’t he get a cab?’

  ‘Not easy to get a taxi, night like New Year. Pricy, too.’

  There was only ten pounds in the petty cash, they discovered. ‘Where’s Mummy planning to put him?’

  ‘The attic flat, I believe.’

  ‘Has it been cleaned up and aired?’

  ‘To my knowledge, not since your father’s day.’

  ‘That was twenty years ago!’ Furious that Ronnie never thought anything through beyond the next few hours, she started to march towards the house, the smash of jaw against metal from the grey stallion’s stable as she passed it making her turn back to Lester. ‘Will you be okay on your own while I try to get the place ready?’

  ‘If you’re sure about that.’ Lester followed, clearing his throat awkwardly, the same noise he’d make when she was tiny and he was worried for her, his most fearless little jockey.

  Pax was touched by his concern, although long numbed to the anxiety she used to feel about the flat that had been home to her parents during their short, unhappy marriage, later becoming her father’s refuge to drink and rage. After his death she’d refused to go near it, weeping on Lester’s shoulder that it was haunted. Looking back, that seemed silly and self-absorbed.

  She jumped as a hind hoof struck out hard against the stable wall beside her. The grey was glaring at them both through his stable bars, ears flat. ‘Why does Mummy like hotheads so much, Lester? Men, horses—’

  ‘Daughters?’

  She cuffed him playfully with her elbow, startled to find him stiff as a statuette, apologising when he almost fell over. ‘I just hope this Luca character keeps his cool and pulls his weight; you can’t be expected to do all the heavy work any more.’

  ‘I told Mrs Ledwell that we need a yard helper, not some highfalutin showjumper,’ Lester sniffed, always at his most confiding with Pax, who he saw as a kindred spirit. ‘Eager youngster, willing to push a barrow in exchange for a few lessons. It’s how your grandfather did it.’

  ‘This place needs a professional too,’ Pax pointed out, watching the grey weave his head from side to side. ‘A cheap local work rider, not James Bond parachuting in with a lunge whip in each hand.’

  ‘You were the best rider this stud ever saw.’

  ‘I was a Pony Clubber,’ she dismissed quickly.

  ‘Only one of the children ever tried the Wolf Moon Lap. Even your mother never did that.’

  ‘She had more sense,’ Pax scoffed, although a small puff of pride lifted her to hear it.

  It was the stuff of family legend – and Pax now thought a ridiculous one – that every year when January’s first full moon, the Wolf Moon, was highest in the sky her great-grandfather Major Frank would carry the wind-up gramophone out onto the yard with his beloved Holst’s Planets on the turntable. Dropping the needle at ‘Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity’, he’d mount his favourite hunter and they’d charge around the stud’s boundary, a far bigger land holding in his day. If he rode back under the arch before the ‘Saturn’ brought old age, it would augur a year’s good fortune to the stud. This was practically impossible in Pax’s experience, although according to Lester, her father had managed it the year she was born. She’d not even come close. Given that Major Frank had also been known for taking pot-shots at his staff and keeping the petty cash in the mouth of the stuffed Barbary lion in his study, she didn’t set much store by his business tactics, however profitable the stud’s fortunes in those days.

  Lester looked at her beadily. ‘Moon’s full on St Agnes day. We could use a prosperous year.’

  ‘I’ll add it to Luca O’Brien’s job description, shall I?’ she said smoothly before deflecting. ‘Alice is convinced the Horsemaker will be all fast-talking blarney and no sticking power. Mummy probably
has the hots for him.’ She’d said it before she could stop herself, aware how flippant and bitter she sounded.

  Lester’s lips pursed disapprovingly. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Come on, Lester, we both know she’ll end up breaking in the babies and riding everything.’ The faded photographs in the tack room of Ronnie Percy hurtling round Badminton and Burghley in her heyday paid testament to her long tenure as the stud’s top jockey, horsebreaker and cover girl. ‘She’s a control freak just like Grumps.’

  It was the perfect pacifier, Lester’s face breaking into a rare smile. ‘I’ll drink to that.’

  ‘Shall we have a quick toot of Laphroaig before I clean the flat?’ Pax offered.

  His eyes sparkled deep within their creases. ‘And you’re the Captain’s granddaughter sure enough.’ But he limped off without taking up her offer.

  3

  Like many gatherings at Compton Bagot’s memorial hall, the village New Year’s Eve party had long ago been hijacked by the Turner family from the Orchard estate. Notorious revellers, great clansmen, occasional fighters and indefatigable dancers whose twirling farrucas and flamencos dated back to their Romany days, they knew how to celebrate.

  As the unofficial Kate to the family’s Prince William, Carly Turner was on show in her best cut-out party frock, painted nails talon-like thanks to sister-in-law Janine, hair up in the tightest face-lift topknot to smooth out the dark hollows around her eyes from staying up all night with teething baby Jackson. Handsome war hero Ash towered and glowered at her side, a wide-shouldered, muscular peacekeeping force, heir apparent to the family chiefdom.

  The teenage Turner tribe were already going rogue, trainers squeaking on the polished floor as a dance-off rapidly turned into a fight, from flossing to right crossing, dabs becoming jabs and beatboxing a spitting match.

  Carly watched as Ash broke up the fight, admiring his cool and the fact he didn’t need to utter a word to command their respect, a jerk of his head alone earning the beta wolf cowers as they sloped away. They all knew Ash could fight better than any Turner. The fact that he’d seen conflict as a soldier was abstract to them, but he’d been one of the family’s best bare-knuckle fighters at their age, which in an old travelling line made him a legend.