The Country Lovers

by Walker, Fiona

  ‘Fuck you!’ He hung up.

  She drove to the airport in a haze of tears and a plume of exhaust fumes, parking the raspberry-blowing Fiat in the pickup zone and dashing into the arrivals terminal, embarrassed to be late after all the hanging about waiting to set off.

  A long row of delayeds greeted her on the board.

  ‘Everything’s affected by the fog,’ she was told by a uniformed official with funky sideburns at the information desk, his accent a sweet Brummy apology. ‘Dublin’s been out of action all afternoon, now Manchester’s grounded everything. Fog wasn’t supposed to get here until tomorrow, so it’s a ruddy nightmare. Where’s he flying from, love?’

  ‘Canada – no, Schiphol.’

  The airport worker checked on his computer. ‘That’s still listed, but you’ll have a long wait. It’s not left Amsterdam yet. Likely as not, they’ll redirect it to London if it does.’

  ‘Which airport?’ she asked wearily.

  ‘Can’t tell yet. Quicker to wait. They usually lay on a coach. Could be the early hours before he gets here, I’m afraid. Do you live far? Great hair, by the way.’

  On red-eyed, bruise-bagged, hollow-cheeked days like this, Pax was ever-grateful for her grandmother’s hair. People always loved the hair. It was on a par with a handbag dog.

  Damn Luca O’Brien for being late.

  ‘My car’s about to die.’ She looked around distractedly. It would be midnight in three hours, her last drunken stand of the year – of all time – forfeited. Tonight it mattered. Shameful, desperate tears filled her eyes.

  ‘Boyfriend, is it?’ The worker looked at her sympathetically.

  ‘Husband.’ She realised too late that she’d misunderstood him, still thinking everyone could see her marriage break-up reflected back from her eyes like a disaster movie. Instead, he saw romance, lovers separated by fog as midnight chimed. It hardly mattered.

  ‘As it’s New Year…’ he said, reaching under his counter, voice hushed. ‘I shouldn’t be doing this, but you’re too beautiful to be sad and this might cheer you up.’ He smiled wider, sideburns stretching, and pulled out a voucher for the airport hotel.

  ‘Complimentary room. Show this to reception and say Dig okayed it.’ He signed the back. ‘My boyfriend’s the manager. He’ll make sure you get an upgrade and free drinks at the bar. Make the most of it. Happy New Year.’

  Pax took it gratefully. She’d take all the compliments on offer right now.

  On the way back to the car, she left a message on Luca O’Brien’s number to say where she’d be waiting. At least a hotel room would be a lot warmer and cleaner than the stud, she realised with relief, hoping they took dogs; they could both do with a bath.

  *

  Carly could hold her drink, but she couldn’t hope to keep up with Bridge, who was downing three glasses of wine for her every one, talking horse all over the movie.

  ‘You can put your foot in the stirrup any time, queen. I only started in my twenties.’ The self-mocking Belfast lilt hypnotised Carly, full of vim and vigour as she tried to convince her to have a go at riding. ‘And I was living in fecking London at the time, can you believe? Could never afford it before then. Used to catch a tube train out to Barnet in designer breeches every Saturday morning, fighting the pervs off – came back stinking of gee-gee a few hours later and they’d come nowhere near me. I’ve been addicted to it ever since. Vowed I’d buy my own ned as soon as I left the city. Best feeling.’

  The first time Carly had encountered Bridge – galloping straight at her through a cornfield on an out-of-control pony, laughing and whooping and apologising all at the same time – she’d hoped they’d be mates. Carly liked rebels, those dangerous souls who dared to live a little bit faster than others. From her trendy silver hair with its pink tips through her geek glasses, paired this evening with a prison-arrow onesie and felt pheasant slippers, Bridge was standout unconventional and a breath of fresh air in the Comptons. Her face had a likeably sharp-nosed, almond-eyed shrewdness, and Carly liked her voice as well, that sardonic flat ‘Norn Irish’ drawl reminded her of clever comedians on panel shows, and made everything sound ironically amusing. She was clever and grumpy and kind.

  The fact she had her own horse deepened the bond, as she told Carly, ‘You can have a sit on my wee woolly man any time. I was just like you, loved the creatures since I was a kid, but there’s not many grew up on my street ever sat on more than a donkey on the beach.’

  Which made it all the more embarrassing to drift off halfway through Bridge telling her all about Craic, only hearing as far as the bit where she’d bought him unpapered and unhandled, fresh off the boat from Ireland for slightly less than it cost to have her hair extensions redone every three months.

  Instead, she dreamed about the colt at Compton Bagot stud, Spirit, gold and black like a Versace piece, his white blaze and stockings flashing as he galloped away over the ridge above the Comptons, past the windmill there, disappearing forever.

  She awoke with a jerk to find herself covered with a thick red big-knit blanket that smelled comfortingly of woodsmoke, a purring cat on her feet.

  ‘Happy New Year!’ From the opposite sofa, Bridge raised her glass and a well-shaped eyebrow, prettily slitted with two shaven tramlines. ‘I’m so glad you snore.’

  ‘Shit, did I miss it? Ash will go ape.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, you silly cow. It’s not even ten. You look done in. Little one teething?’

  It was such a relief to be with someone who got it. Turner women rarely shared parenting horrors, at least not with Carly, the closed order around delinquent teens and tantruming toddlers as defensive as owners of dangerous dogs – and they had those on the estate, too.

  ‘You need food, queen. There’s nothing of you. No wonder you’re knackered. Say, do you fancy nachos and dip? The really lazy sort full of E numbers that comes in a fecking jar. I don’t do trendy fermented food unless you count Greek yoghurt that’s gone off.’

  ‘Me neither.’ She grinned as Bridge sauntered into the kitchen, fielding a call on her mobile. Her hostess catcalled with delight, obviously a close family member, her accent thickening.

  Carly checked her own phone. Ash hadn’t replied to her text. She sent him another to say she was still girl-talking.

  The rock anthem soundtrack and whoops had racked up so much next door that the floor was vibrating, and she shuddered to imagine the state of the swishy-haired students and their Sellotaped fancy dress, especially with Skully in the room. She trusted Ash to just admire the view while he concentrated on getting slowly drunk. Very, very drunk. Not that he betrayed it for a minute. Only Carly recognised the glint of anaesthesia finally clouding the pain, the soporific, seductive Ash she’d learned to live with because the brave soldier had left a part of his soul on the battlefield.

  ‘Sorry about that.’ Bridge returned with a tray of jars and foil snack bags and more wine. ‘My sister getting the hour difference wrong. She’s in Hollywood – works in the film industry.’

  She looked so pink-cheeked and proud, Carly forgave her the boast. ‘Is she an actress?’

  ‘SFX make-up artist. Mostly TV, but she was in the prosthetics team for Futureland. Have you seen it? She had you-know-who in her chair for three hours a day most of last year.’

  ‘You’re kidding! I wanted to see that at the cinema, but Ash…’ She hesitated. ‘We’ll get the DVD when it comes out.’ They avoided films with long battle scenes or big explosions: his legs and hands starting to jump, face sweaty, eyes fixed.

  ‘I’ve it downloaded. We can watch a bit if you’ve got time to break another nail and say we’re talking potty training?’

  Carly didn’t need asking twice.

  *

  To Pax’s relief the airport hotel accepted small, well-behaved dogs for an extra charge, buying her lie that the deerhound puppy was a Yorkie-poo. ‘Oh, sweet! What’s his name?’

  ‘Incognito.’

  Having found her room – small and co
rporate with a worryingly empty minibar – she ordered a steak baguette and a large vodka from room service. She wasn’t hungry, but needed to legitimise the drink, and she knew the puppy would appreciate the steak. She started to pace again, restlessness kicking in with now-familiar pins and needles and adrenaline.

  Her phone rang, a withheld number, and she leapt on it, hoping Luca had landed somewhere. Preferably back in Canada.

  ‘Patricia, this is Marianne,’ barked a familiar short-shrift Scottish voice. ‘I don’t want to discuss what is going on between you and my brother, but we have a bit of a – situation here, and I’m going to need your help.’

  ‘Is it Kes?’

  ‘No, he is perfectly fine, upstairs asleep with the boys. It’s Mack. He’s rather upset.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘The thing is, he’s on the garage roof.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And he’s refusing to come down until he talks to you. Mother is very upset. We all are.’

  ‘I suppose I’d better speak to him.’

  ‘I’ll hand you up.’

  There was a lot of muffled clanks and she heard Mack’s voice demanding, ‘Is it her?’ before he came loudly on the line, his voice even more whisky- and sob-soaked.

  ‘I’m not fucking coming down until you tell me you fucking love me!’

  ‘For Chrissake, Mack.’

  ‘I can wait here all night!’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Just come down.’ She tried to picture him up on Marianne’s flat double garage roof, accessed by crawling through the bathroom window. It was hardly the Empire State, and Mack wasn’t the suicidal sort. She suspected you could throw yourself off it from a hundred different angles and not break a bone, but she didn’t want to test it.

  ‘You worshipped me once, Tishy!’ he wailed.

  False gods. Always her weakness.

  ‘There’s someone fucking else, isn’t there?’ he was deman-ding now.

  ‘There’s nobody, Mack.’

  ‘Don’t fucking lie!’

  She laughed hollowly, unable to imagine where she’d get the time and energy for infidelity, let alone the self-confidence. How much simpler would it be to get through this if there was an affair, to justify it with a burning new love rather than giving up on a burnt-out one?

  ‘We’ll talk when you’re back. See a counsellor, maybe.’

  ‘Fuck that! I’m not letting some fucking do-goody nosy parker ask a load of shit about our private life. We’ll sort this out now! You say there’s nobody else, and I’m prepared to believe you. You love me, I love you. We are man and wife. That’s all there is to it.’

  ‘If you say so.’ Pacifying, she borrowed Lester’s favourite phrase, her thoughts flitting back to the old man’s raised glass earlier, toasting Oliver, of whom she and Mack never spoke. Perhaps they should. They’d never sought professional help at the time.

  ‘I fucking know so!’ he was raging. ‘It’s you who doesn’t know your own mind, wee bird. You never have. You’re fragile. You get all muddled up by your past. Other people exploit that.’

  ‘I’m not muddled up. I’ve felt this way for a long time. After Oliver was born, I—’

  ‘We’ve been through all that, Tishy. We’re bigger than that. We’re us. You need me.’ He was trying to sound cajoling, but it was all muddled with tears and sneers, humiliation rocking his core. ‘Don’t leave me,’ he sobbed. ‘Tell me you’re not going to leave me?’

  Pax closed her eyes, thinking enviously of Lizzie catching her groom-shagging ex-husband in the act, so much easier to legitimately cast off, however painful. It’s why Mack wanted to accuse a third party, be it vodka bottle or a lover. How much harder was it when there was no blame, no fault, no moral high ground; when one simply stopped loving? When marriage was drowning you in loneliness, you had to save yourself.

  ‘You’re the one who was threatening to leave me and move to Scotland earlier,’ she reminded him.

  ‘It’s too fucking cold up here.’

  ‘You are on a roof, Mack.’

  He started to sob again. Long, mournful cries.

  ‘Mack?’

  He wept on. She knew that tomorrow he would sharply about-face, sober once more and in need of a whipping boy. He would punish her for this humiliation, the scorpion sting poised. She knew how he worked, and it helped immunise her against kindness, check the compassion that would say all the right things, the pity that would offer him an olive branch in a family tree with their roots entwined deep in dead clay. She had to tip her head up, hold in the tears fiercely, breathe and keep calm.

  ‘Tishy, are you still there?’

  Pax, she thought furiously. My name is Pax. It always was. My mother nicknamed me as a baby because I slept so peacefully. Like Kes sleeps peacefully. After she left us all behind, I had trouble sleeping. I still do. We must never do that to Kes. Mummy wasn’t allowed to come back for her children. My father and grandfather told her we’d be better off without her. I will never let that happen to Kes. Never.

  ‘Still here.’

  ‘Please don’t hang up.’

  ‘I won’t.’ She was Samaritan-calm now.

  He sobbed and sniffled. Blew his nose. Sobbed again, reminding her again not to hang up.

  She wasn’t sure how long her phone battery would last. It was an old handset, and she hadn’t brought her charger with her.

  ‘Do you want to talk?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  Fresh sobbing. ‘I just need you there… don’t say anything… just stay there.’

  Minutes cranked past. She looked at her watch. Five minutes. Seven. Ten. Her phone battery was at five per cent. She needed the loo. Where was the vodka she’d ordered?

  In Scotland, Marianne and the family must have all gone back inside to party on, the concerned voices no longer rising and falling in the background, just wind whistling, distant bass thuds, and Mack’s sinal breathing. That grated away her sympathy, a direct reminder of the hours she’d spent lying awake in bed listening to it in its slumber, the snores rising and retreating, her heart hammering, wondering if she’d ever have the guts to end the marriage.

  ‘Don’t go,’ he reminded her every few minutes.

  Twelve. Fifteen.

  How long was this standoff going to last? Was he hoping to make her listen to him freeze to death?

  There was a quiet knock on the hotel room door. Her reflexes whipcracked, craving the first cold heat of vodka in her mouth. She tried to steal silently across the room to open it, but the puppy started bounding and barking behind her.

  A lofty youth in a too-tight uniform stood in the corridor with a tray. ‘Hello! I am Radek and I bring you room service this evening.’

  Hanging onto the barking puppy’s collar, Pax tried to hush him, rolling her eyes at the phone wedged between ear and shoulder, making apologetic gestures. But he was already marching inside, his feet huge, talking loudly in an Eastern European accent about the New Year party going on in the bar. ‘You will come down to join guests later, I think. It is big fun night. Oh, sweet puppy.’ He put the tray on the desk and stooped down, making ‘smoosh’ kissy noises as he did so.

  ‘What’s going on?’ demanded Mack. ‘Where are you and who the fuck is that?’

  ‘I’m in an airport hotel,’ she explained, which didn’t help.

  ‘You’re fucking leaving the fucking country?’

  ‘No, Mack.’

  But he was too busy raging to listen. The tears and the long, martyred silence were instantly replaced with a barrage of accusations – running away with her lover, bolting just like her mother.

  Having finally twigged that she was on the phone and the call was a bit delicate, Radek backed towards the door, but he was having difficulty shaking off the puppy who had hold of his trouser leg with his small, sharp teeth. Hurrying to detach him, Pax felt the phone slip from her shoulder’s grip, drop to the carpet. The puppy let go of the hem and picked it up instead, triggering the handsfree speak
er, so the shouting seemed to be coming from his mouth.

  ‘You’ll never get custody of Kes, you realise? I know about your past, remember? Even the bit you didn’t tell the police and social services. All of it.’ The battery died with an electronic chirrup.

  ‘Happy New Year!’ Radek hurried out.

  Pax grabbed the vodka. She knew she could call Mack from the hotel phone, try to pacify him, reassure him, entreat him not to rake up the past, but she couldn’t face the ranting and paranoia; he was at least half a bottle of Scotch ahead of her and they were getting nowhere. Let him freeze to the roof with his self-pitying tears. He wasn’t getting Kes.

  In the bathroom to pee, she caught her reflection, registering her hard-heartedness, shocked by it. Had her mother felt this way about her father, or was it different with a lover to share the burden? Should she just find somebody to sleep with to exonerate Mack, like divorcing husbands in the fifties forced to book a prostitute and a hotel for the private detective to photograph, grounds for divorce established.

  She thought fleetingly of Bay, her first teenage love, their reunion at her grandfather’s funeral coinciding with the dawning realisation that her marriage was beyond repair. Their paths had crossed several times since then, his flirtation an open invitation, his reputation a big BEWARE sign. She’d seen past it all. Now a husband and father, his eyes mirrored hers, a fellow member of the unhappy spouse club, a secret society whose members became evermore apparent to Pax these days. One certainly didn’t have to look too closely to see the cracks all over Bay’s marriage to his icy Dutch wife. But cracked mirrors brought bad luck. He’d broken her heart twice over fourteen years ago, and revenge on both their houses was not her style.

  If Mack thought she was having an affair, he didn’t know her at all. But that, surely, was at the decayed roots of it all – his wife had always been ultra-feminine and submissive in his eyes, needing a big, strong man to steer the way. Had Tishy been lying in another man’s bed, he’d find this easier to comprehend. Pax, alone and defiant, made no sense to him.