by Fiona Walker
‘I want you the fuck off my sofa and out of my house by the time I get back, understood?’ she whispered.
‘You sound just like the wife. Can’t remember which one.’ A big, broken-toothed grin broke out, his eyes still shut.
Carly could hear Janine’s engine pull up outside, then a short toot of the horn, her little cleaning van fully loaded for a morning’s waxing and bleaching.
Hurrying back to the kitchen, she found Ash applying peanut butter as thickly as mortar.
‘Flynn’ll be at Petra’s later,’ she told him. ‘I can talk to him some more about the farrier idea, if you like? About you apprenticing?’ She ignored another beep from Janine’s horn, more insistent this time.
‘I’ve told you, Flynn’s a mate.’ He scratched his fingers through his hair and she noticed the joints were red and scraped. ‘You don’t work for mates.’
‘What’s Skully, then?’ she asked him, reaching for his hand, not dropping his gaze.
The horn outside beeped long and hard.
Her palms folded warm and firm round bruised knuckles, and she saw a muscle in his cheek jump in pain as he regarded her levelly, the sleepy sweetness gone, silver eyes armoured.
‘He works for me. Now stop asking questions.’ Kissing her on the forehead and pulling his hands from hers, he turned away to bite into his toast.
Janine was beeping furiously.
‘At least let me talk to Flynn, Ash.’
‘It’s a free country. Talk to anyone you like.’
Carly grabbed her coat and bag, muttering. ‘Just not you, eh?’
*
The Bags waited at the fork by the Green for the bus to drop a couple of pensioners at the stop before it edged its way cautiously past them with a hiss of air brakes that sent Craic bounding into reverse. The bus had an advert for a slimming club on the back.
‘I’m going to get so fat, stuck at my desk,’ Petra grumbled. ‘This time, I’m digging out the 30 Day Shred DVD Charlie gave me.’
‘OHM!’ The Bags’ combined chant might sound to an outsider like a mounted Buddhist meditation, but OHM stood for Off-putting Husband Moment, from fat-shaming gifts to cutting their toenails in bed.
Petra laughed. ‘It’s the most exhausting sixty minutes imaginable, and I’ve only watched it once, lying on the sofa with a glass of wine.’
‘You need one of them personal trainers,’ suggested Mo. ‘Why not try Ash Turner? He’d make you a good Roundhead for your book, all silent and brooding. Bet you wouldn’t say no to a few burpees with him in your plotting shed.’
‘Only if it’s free.’ Petra laughed. ‘Maybe they’ll do me a BOGOF if I hire husband and wife together?’
‘He’s not qualified yet,’ said Bridge proprietorially.
‘Petra could be his guinea pig,’ Mo suggested.
‘The Turners already have two guinea pigs, named Claudia and Tess.’ Bridge didn’t want her fantasy stolen, and certainly not by Petra who was already casting her that milky-eyed, knowing look.
‘How come you know so much about our village war hero and his pets, Bridge?’
She was spared answering as Craic sprang sideways, a small group of cyclists in lurid Lycra whizzing past, breathing hard. Also taking exception, Petra’s mare skittered across the lane.
‘Bloody mamils,’ hissed Gill as the riders regrouped, her husband’s cycling obsession having lent her a deep resentment of all road-hogging, shaven-legged men in knee-length stretch fabric. When the others looked blank, she explained, ‘Middle-Aged Men In Lycra.’
The Bags loved their acronyms, especially Gill.
‘What does that make us, love?’ laughed Mo. ‘Middle-Aged Birds In Breeches?’
‘Speak for yourself,’ snapped Bridge. ‘I vote slits: sexy ladies in the saddle. Let’s all rock Viv Albertine!’
‘Is she in the Comptons WI?’ asked Gill.
‘We’re Bags and always will be,’ Petra reassured them. ‘Bad Arse Gallopers.’
Exchanging smiles, they rose and fell happily in their saddles with togetherness and horsiness. It felt bewitchingly spring-like, the Gulf Stream blowing them along with unseasonal warmth, sunlight piercing the chugging clouds in a thousand places like a laser show.
Trotting alongside the Green, they were briefly distracted by the sight of the sexy new husband from Well Cottage out jogging, but their smiles froze at the sight of a Cossack moustache of Christmas growth.
‘He looks like a 118 man,’ Petra said disappointedly.
The Bags were great authorities on male facial hair.
Bridge’s new-found sexual enthusiasm was already waning in the wake of Aleš’s stubborn refusal to shave his, a subject on which vet Gill was more than sympathetic as they compared hirsute husbands, dodging more dog walkers and runners.
Gill’s short, cycling-mad husband Paul was a long-term fan of face fur. ‘I can’t stand the way he scratches at it, like a nail brush. The sound sets my teeth on edge.’
‘But at least Paul’s is aerodynamically stubbly,’ Bridge pointed out, waving a car past with a thank-you salute. ‘It’s a dusting. Aleš’s Balbo’s like a living creature.’
‘What is a Balbo?’
‘Robert Downey Junior,’ said Petra, trotting alongside.
‘Don’t you start that old celeb thing again,’ Bridge warned. ‘I have to sleep with this man.’
‘Johnny Depp.’ Petra stuck out her tongue.
‘Still not doing it.’
‘Now I’m rather fond of a Shakespearean beard,’ Gill said as they dropped back to a walk and funnelled from the Plum Run into Church Lane, the lychgate end double-parked with white vans and a scaffolding lorry, men in hard hats standing in the graveyard looking up at the tower.
‘Aleš grooms that fecking thing on his face like a pet. It has its own personality. I’ve forgotten what his chin looks like, but I know sticky ribs weren’t off the menu, and it felt better between the thighs.’
‘I love a man with a beard down there,’ Petra giggled. ‘It’s retro Joy of Sex.’
‘Not if he likes you to be shaved smooth as a baby’s arse, trust me. That’s like setting a Schnauzer on an oven-ready chicken.’ Bridge shifted uncomfortably in the saddle.
‘Really, ladies!’ Gill’s eyes bulged. ‘Someone might hear. This is the village conservation area.’
‘So sorry – Labrador with a guinea fowl,’ Bridge corrected in a hoity-toity voice, and Petra started snorting with laughter.
Hushing them, Gill stole an anxious look at the ornate greenhouse recently constructed in the garden of The Old Alms Houses. It was steamed up, a figure silhouetted inside.
‘What are you all gossiping about?’ Mo had caught up breathlessly on the cob.
‘Heritage glasshouses,’ Petra said kindly. ‘Kit Donne’s a convert since Ronnie replaced his – look.’
‘Lovely cold frames.’ Mo admired it. ‘And those finials are ever so classy.’
‘Think the Bardswold Bolter pops in to see his seeds sprout?’ Bridge gave Petra a leading look.
‘She’ll be far too busy with her Horsemaker,’ she sighed.
The unexpectedly feral-looking Luca O’Brien had been spotted twice at a distance on Bag hacks, although frustratingly it seemed not even Petra had managed to get an introduction yet.
‘He’s far too young for her,’ Gill scoffed.
‘What is a big, wild beard like Luca O’Brien’s called, Bridge?’ asked Mo.
‘A fecking mess?’
‘A yeard,’ Petra insisted excitedly, clearly entertaining another retro Joy of Sex moment. ‘I can’t believe I’m going into hiding just as the most exciting man arrives in this village,’ she groaned. ‘Charlie’s in a permanently foul mood now he’s back in chambers; I need a new crush to keep me company.’
Bridge guessed the Gunn marriage was uncocked again. On the surface, Petra’s festivities might have seemed an enviably M&S Christmas advert affair, but the Bags all knew one another’s home truths well enough
to see that beneath all the tinsel and Tartan Stag sheets, Charlie and Petra Gunn wore emotional mittens and bobble hats. There was nothing lonelier than close confinement with a cold shoulder and the other cheek turned. It was no secret that Petra escaped into the plots of her racy bodice-rippers to compensate. She’d killed off the character inspired by Bay at the end of the last book.
‘I’m going to make the Horsemaker one of Prince Rupert’s cavaliers.’
‘How can you write it if you haven’t even met your new leading man?’ Gill pointed out.
‘I’ll use my imagination. It’s what I do for a living.’
‘Wait! Can you hear what I can hear?’ Mo gasped excitedly.
Hooves thundered in the distance.
‘It’s fate!’
They all stood in their stirrups and peered past the church yews and pollarded poplars and beyond the drystone wall at the far end of the lane where the church meadows swept up to the standing stones. There, two riders were silhouetted romantically on the brow of the hill, sexily slender and well-balanced.
‘That’s Monique Austen and her groom,’ Petra identified, the Bags all slumping back in their saddles disappointedly, suspecting that Bay’s dressage-loving wife – who rarely left the luxury of her arena – was out scouting for the new arrival too.
‘Let’s ride past the stud,’ Gill insisted, waving them into action. ‘Mohammed is going to the mountain. Trot on!’
‘Bagsy me ride up the mountain first!’ Petra was already in trot.
‘Then tie the mountain up and have your wicked way with him,’ muttered Bridge, wishing she’d applied some more Sudocrem to her beard-ravaged privates as Craic bounded in pursuit. At least scouting for the Horsemaker took her mind off her job interview.
*
‘It took eight messages to get you to ring me back, Pax!’ Alice complained.
‘Sorry, Lisp,’ she whispered, ‘you know the signal here. You could have tried the landline.’ Her sister loathed calling that in case she got their mother.
‘Where are you?’ Alice was demanding. ‘You sound like a spy.’
‘Up in the stables tower. There are bat droppings everywhere, plus a pair of binoculars and a notebook. I think Pip Edwards used it as her lair.’
‘Is she still AWOL? You must tell me everything that’s been happening. How’s Luca O’Brien settling in?’
‘He keeps himself to himself.’ Pax was grateful for it. For six days, they had successfully avoided looking one another in the eye, being alone in the same space or addressing more than half a dozen words to the other.
‘Not strong and silent like Lester, surely?’ Alice sounded surprised.
‘Less of his mettle.’ Whereas the stud’s old stallion man wasn’t afraid to stand up to their mother, the new arrival did as Ronnie said, smiling all the while.
‘Well, the old boy does now have titanium hips,’ her sister said drily. ‘I thought Mother’s golden boy was all brass neck when I saw him, shouting the odds.’
Pax didn’t want to dwell on the feed-room argument Alice had interrupted. She’d said some unforgiveable things.
‘He’s just snappy, like all lapdogs.’ She picked up the binoculars and trained them across the yard where Luca had Beck cross-tied in a standing stall, bandaging his stamping, cow-kicking legs. He was already under Ronnie’s cosh, just as Pax would be if she didn’t take daily evasive action. One of the reasons for sneaking up here to call Alice was to avoid being legged-up onto Lester’s cob to ride out. ‘He’s clearly besotted with Mummy.’ She knew it shouldn’t bother her as much as it did.
‘Men always swoon at Mother’s feet,’ Alice scorned.
The stallion let out a bellow as Ronnie led out her retired eventer, Dickon, with a clatter of iron on cobble. A scrawny thoroughbred the colour of a scuffed oak floor, Dickon was as laid-back and kind as Beck was explosive and combative.
‘Is it mutual?’ Alice was asking.
‘Shh, I’m listening.’ She craned forwards. ‘The new stallion’s not been ridden in years and Mummy has just said, “Don’t be so wet, once around the woods is just what he needs.” Luca might be about to join Lester in an orthopaedic ward.’
‘Good.’
‘Wiser to wait until this place is in better shape first. Wish broken bones on Mack instead.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re still giving him the cold shoulder?’ Alice lectured. ‘That must have been quite a tiff.’
‘On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me, grounds for a Decree Nisi,’ she sang flatly, binoculars still raised, watching the stallion humping his back as a saddle was lowered onto it.
‘It’s nice-eye,’ her sister corrected. ‘Is that what Mack’s been giving someone else. Or is that the glad eye?’
‘Nobody gives the glad eye any more, Lisp, they sext. And there’s nobody else involved in this, unless you count his bloody parents.’
Alice was having difficulty grasping the gravity of Pax’s marital problems. ‘Don’t tell me doughty Muir and Mairi still bear a grudge because you refused to wear the Forsyth sash at the Royal Caledonian Ball?’
‘They want him to seek sole custody of Kes.’ Her throat caught. She was grateful to Knott who came to lean hard against her side.
Now Alice was taking her more seriously. ‘Tell them to bugger right off!’
‘It’s not that simple.’ Kes adored Granddad and Nana Forsyth – who he’d recently taken to calling ‘Grandforce’ and ‘Nanaforce’ like superheroes – and Pax had no desire to poison that bond. All this was affecting him deeply. And while she found it maddening that her in-laws were policing the five-year-old with strident overkill, she realised they represented much-needed stability. Added to which, Pax’s personal history made treading on eggshells the only way forwards. ‘I don’t want a fight, Lisp.’
‘We’re an old military family, we all fight. Good idea to set up temporary base camp at the stud. You sit pretty and keep an eye on Mummy until she pushes off.’
‘Mack’s parents insist Kes being here is a health and safety risk,’ Pax told Alice. ‘The trouble is, he’s totally unafraid of horses. The moment my back’s turned he’s in with the yearlings or cosying up to a mare in foal. But he’s stayed with me in the cottage just one night since coming back from Scotland.’
In what appeared to be a well-planned coup, Muir and Mairi had called round first thing the following morning to offer to ‘take our wee man to his favourite wildlife park’ while Pax helped on the yard. Twelve hours later, after leaving a stack of panicked messages and driving back and forth between the Comptons, their locked bungalow and a deserted Mack Shack, Pax finally received a call to say Kes had enjoyed a wonderful day and was fast asleep in their box room, so best he stayed there. It had established a pattern; another Forsyth family jaunt took place the next day. Today’s outing was on a steam train. They were maxing out the Tesco vouchers.
‘For God’s sake don’t let Mother put Kes on a pony,’ said Alice. ‘We’ll never get rid of her if she thinks he’s the next family protégé. When does he go back to pre-prep? That’ll square things up.’
‘Next week, in theory, but Mack’s told them Kes isn’t returning.’ He and the headmaster were exchanging increasingly angry emails, with Pax caught between, loyalties torn. While Kes had yet to settle happily in the tough, old-fashioned little school at which Reception pupils were hardened off with cross-country runs and choir practice, Mack’s proposal was far worse. ‘The Forsyths are already packing to go back to Scotland, saying he’ll be educated there.’
‘Apply for whatever emergency hearing one does to get a custody ruling in these situations.’ Alice was straight to the practical solution. ‘Tell them Mack wallops you if you have to; everyone knows he’s a thug; I’ll back you up.’
Pax watched the puppy curled up warmly against her, innocent in sleep, his slim grey-whiskered face folded in his huge paws.
‘Mack’s never hit me, Lisp.’ Bullies like her husband broke spirit
s, not bones, all too often shrouded in I’m-doing-this-for-your-own-good morality. ‘It won’t come to that,’ she said, closing her eyes and praying. ‘It’s typical hot air, like telling me I’m fired from the business. Our life and our work are still here. Mack can bang on all he likes about Scottish divorce laws making it hard for me to bleed him dry; right now, all I’m asking for is a simple separation agreement naming our son’s primary residency with me.’
‘At the stud?’
Hearing the self-interest loaded in the question, Pax waited for its sting to soften. ‘Not for long. I’ll rent somewhere. I’m looking at new schools this week, seeing one today in fact.’ She sounded a lot calmer than she felt, the panic that bubbled up around Mack’s threats never far from the surface. ‘The village primary school here.’
‘Good God, Pax!’ Alice sounded shocked at last. ‘I had no idea it had come to that. You’re off the juice, I take it?’
Again, Pax let indignation subside. Outside, her mother had mounted Dickon and was clattering around impatiently while Luca tried to find a girth long enough to fit the stallion.
‘High and dry,’ she told her sister through gritted teeth. Without Kes at home, the only way she’d maintained it was going to bed at teatime to read gripping thrillers, sweating through the need for Scotch, battling to focus on whodunnit and why she cared.
‘Well, I hope your solicitor’s good.’
‘She is.’ Straight-talking, refreshingly upbeat and also a mother – her daughter went to the village school – Helen Beadle worked from her attic office with such tenacity that Mack, predictably, had sneeringly dubbed her Hell On Call. ‘She’s more softly-softly than his grand inquisitor, and her track record’s good in disputes over children.’ It was on Helen’s advice that Pax hadn’t kicked up a fuss about Kes’s day trips and sleepovers with his grandparents. ‘She says Mack’s doing himself no favours, freezing the joint bank cards and changing locks. My clothes were dumped in bin bags at the end of the drive here yesterday – Mummy’s horse spooked at them and almost went under the postman’s van. Then, apparently last night, Mack put a rant up on Facebook accusing me of everything from bankrupting the company to shagging his best plasterer.’ Social media was the deep, dark woods to Pax – ironically, Mack was the one who’d talked her out of it, claiming it was full of predatory paedophiles and lifestyle envy – but friends had told her, and it stung like a wasp swarm. That he’d later deleted it was no comfort. ‘It could be worse, apparently. Revenge porn or suchlike.’