Country Lovers

by Fiona Walker

  Aleš’s appetite had no such limits. He had seconds, then thirds.

  Knackered, with a lip that hurt – a lot – Bridge had to concentrate hard to stop her eyelids drooping while he talked about his stew, Poland, football and himself for ninety-five per cent of the time, her new job for five. ‘You think you’ll like it, yes?’

  ‘I already love it.’ Her new job paid a fraction of the Sous Vide glamour job, had a status a stratosphere lower, but Kismet had led her to it. She was needed from the get-go, her phone’s note app already chock-full of school inspection requirements grabbed online. It wasn’t about the money. She was Médecins Sans Frontières landing in a warzone. The biggest difficulty was going to be coming home and casting off the flak jacket.

  ‘There’s something different about you tonight, I don’t know what.’ Aleš tilted his head. ‘You change your hair?’

  ‘Employment changes a woman.’

  It surprised her that Aleš hadn’t noticed the swollen lower lip straight away, although she’d made sure she kept her trademark red gloss topped up at all times to hide it, wine glass raised to her mouth whenever it wore a bit thin, regularly escaping to a mirror to reapply, ashamed of her vanity. Now she checked her reflection in the microwave’s black glass. Quite sexy from certain angles, but unnaturally huge. Did she look hot? Hot enough for Ash Turner to fancy her? Stop that!

  Aleš sang her upstairs with a husky reprise of ‘Love Is All Around’, slapping her backside playfully all the way up the narrow treads, hushing past their children’s doors, then bursting into their own room, so low-ceilinged that he hit his head on both door frame and ceiling light, a sure sign that he was stocious. ‘I want those big lips around my chuja.’

  Bridge licked her sore lips, tasting paprika, Malbec and pain. Her husband’s sudden and inconvenient interest in a blow job was doubtless not unconnected to the huge, glistening pout. But the thought was eye-watering. Every nerve ending there pounded.

  ‘I’m cream-crackered, lover,’ she lisped, diving into the bathroom to clean her teeth and tone down her make-up, keeping the scars covered.

  You should tell him the truth, her reflection admonished.

  He’ll make me get rid of Craic.

  You just like secrets. They empower you. She closed her eyes, briefly reliving the blind, foolish moment she’d taken Ash Turner’s thumb into her mouth, the sheer thrill of it.

  Back out again and Aleš was lying back in just his checked underpants, his cock protruding hopefully from the gap, listing left. ‘Hey, kochanie, you eat my beautiful food, now I give you dessert…’ In Aleš’s mind, cooking was as seductive a piece of foreplay as hours of toe nibbling or massaging.

  Stifling a yawn, she waved a dismissive hand. ‘We need a night off. I’ve got to be at the school first thing.’

  ‘Just kiss it quickly, eh?’ He invited her closer to his crotch with open palms like a shopping channel presenter showing off a Lightning Deal, as if she might not be able to navigate her way there without this helpful gesture.

  Bridge summoned her sleeping libido back to life with the emergency button, allowing herself another flashback of Ash’s thumb in her mouth and silver eyes on hers.

  ‘I’ll ride you if you like.’ Not giving him the chance to negotiate, she climbed aboard, swiftly removing the boxers from around his listing chuja, which hardened gratifyingly fast.

  For a few brief minutes they both revelled in the thrill, then it went rapidly downhill.

  Offended that Bridge was facing his toes – ‘What is with reverse cowgirl?’…’ ‘What’s with you fecking knowing it’s called that?’ – Aleš spun her round to face him like he was rotating a king post, then grunted crabbily when she leaned so far back all he could see was her twin peaks.

  Staring up at the ceiling, she wasn’t thinking of England. Or Ireland. She was thinking of the Orchard Estate. To Bridge it felt briefly electrifying.

  But Aleš ruined it by sitting up and tipping her back, looming over her, his huge torso eclipsing the light, grumpy because she refused to kiss him or his hairy body, fearing her lip would split open again. Her libido jumped ship totally when he called her a lafirynda for coming to bed still in make-up, which she mistook furiously to mean whore, although Aleš explained in flagrante that this was more of a jokey ‘old trollop’.

  They broke apart to regroup, gathering intimacy back around them like bedsheets. Aleš’s double standards astounded Bridge: shaming the wife whose sore mouth he was now repeatedly trying to guide down to his groin. But her own duplicity was surely worse? To prove her point, tired and ruthless, she remounted to ride him home as fast as she could, a galloping finish whipped along by Fantasy Ash who she closed her eyes to join one last time.

  ‘Moje szczęście!’ Aleš cried as he came. My happiness.

  Not mine, thought Bridge sadly, kissing his forehead with her sore lips and hopping off to pull on her gown.

  ‘I think I just heard one of the kids awake,’ she said and escaped to the landing, pressing her hot face against the cool wall outside their door, touching her throbbing lip.

  Both children were fast asleep. In the bedroom she could hear Aleš already snoring.

  Bridge stole downstairs, gathering her powers. It smelled of bigos and blown-out candles. She relit them. Plain white, but they would have to do she thought as she carried them across to the sitting room, balancing them on the repaired crackle-glaze table and shouldering the coffee table chest and sofas to the walls, then peeling back the rug.

  The chalk pentacle was still almost perfectly preserved on the flagstones. She set the candles in its centre along with a recently washed bowl and summonsed her search engine – Incognito Window – to navigate her way to a spell that would send Fantasy Ash packing.

  With limited witchy resources at her disposal – white candles, household herbs, some gift-wrap ribbons – it was like searching for a recipe using store-cupboard standbys the day before the online groceries order arrived. She found just one that might suit her needs – Ye Olde Spell to Lift a Curse. It was very straightforward, a Jamie fifteen-minute meal of a spell. It would have to do.

  She set to work, sprinkling a bit of dried lavender and thyme over her candle flame, saying a few lines, dripping wax into the bowl and spitting on it, feeling increasingly stupid for doing this, not to mention tired and cold; and she was now inconveniently hungry. Her phone, running low on battery, died as she incanted the final line, which felt a bit spooky. Then a dark shadow fell across her flickering pentacle.

  ‘What are you doing, kochanie?’

  She looked up at Aleš, huge, blinky-eyed and naked.

  ‘Hi!’ Not thinking, she blew out the candle. It plunged them into total darkness. ‘Shit!’

  ‘I get light switch.’ There was a crash as Aleš fell over the sofa which wasn’t where it was supposed to be. ‘Oof!’ and the coffee table got him next.

  Bridge managed to fumble the bowl, candle and ribbon out of the way before the lights went on full blast, making them both blink.

  ‘Almost ruined my surprise!’ she game-faced, indicating her chalk pentacle, and wondering what on earth she was going to say to explain it away.

  ‘Huh?’ Aleš was at post-midnight, post-two-bottles-of-red monosyllabic which helped. As long as it sounded vaguely feasible, there was a chance he would swallow any explanation for the sake of getting back to bed. Pavement art?

  ‘Parquet!’ It came to her in a flash.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I always loved parquet. You know, the wood block flooring? So I thought I’d map out my ideal pattern. Plan a treat for the house when my first pay cheque comes in. What do you think?’

  She braced herself. Poor, Bridge. Very poor. This is a flagstone floor in a grade two listed cottage. You hate parquet. He will damn you as a witch and have you dunked.

  He chuckled, squatting down to admire the chalk shape. ‘I thought just same thing when we moved in here. I like this design! I have man who does very good p
arquet. I call him.’ He took her hand. ‘Now come to bed: I am horny again.’

  She gaped at him.

  ‘Joke!’ he grinned, breaking another yawn and lifting her hand to kiss it.

  Bridge felt his whiskers thread beneath her nails, always marvelling at how small her fingers looked in his. And she realised the spell had worked. Fantasy Ash was no longer with her.

  ‘No joke, Aleš, but I do actually feel quite horny…’

  *

  It had gone midnight, but Ronnie couldn’t sleep, the solid wall of warmth alongside so rare that a part of her wanted to savour every moment, to wear its comfort through the night. The paradoxical part always found it disquieting to share her bed, this invasion of heat and shape and noise.

  Blair’s breathing was deep and hoarse, like a tide on shingle, but he didn’t snore. Rare in a man over fifty she’d found, as was his body: lean, strong and demanding, even in sleep where he took up much of the mattress, an arm thrown out across her, leg bent, knee against her thighs. Her own body, folded neatly around his sharp edges, felt soporific as it always did after sex, still restfully aroused, affection amplified so that she wanted to bottle it, this essence of loving and being loved physically and in mind.

  To miss somebody’s presence as much as she had his meant making love was never a ritual of lust and habit; it was a reunion they couldn’t take for granted, that might end in a moment. It never mattered when or where they found each other so long as they could revisit their shared, private space. On the competition circuit, the lines had blurred but remained distinct, two seasoned gypsies who never unpacked.

  Now Blair was in her home. He was staying the night. The sudden shift to a new foothold both frightened and excited her.

  Ronnie’s childhood memories were tucked in every corner of this house, her marriage had played out here, the loss of both her parents. Her daughter and grandson were sleeping in a cottage across the courtyard, Blair’s car parked amongst the family ones.

  She could hear an owl shrieking outside, then a fox bark. Another noise, less familiar, the faint bang like a door – a horse perhaps? Unaccustomed to being awake at this hour, Ronnie drank in its nocturnal strangeness, the rise and fall of Blair’s chest and her own in simpatico. Just one night together to savour.

  He stirred, head lifting to study the luminous hands of his watch before it turned to her, eyes gleaming in the near darkness. He’d always napped like a cat.

  Drawing her closer, he grumbled that she’d put on pyjamas. His fingers slid beneath the top, their tips tracing up her ribcage.

  ‘I was cold.’

  ‘I can keep you warm…’ He followed his fingers with his lips, the familiar low growl of his voice a never-ending aphrodisiac. ‘You want to go again?’

  ‘We’re not teenagers,’ she laughed, not sure that she did, her state of contentment now deeply bedded in.

  ‘In horse years we are,’ he reminded her, head reappearing opposite hers, smile wide. ‘I can still ride round Badminton twice in a day.’

  ‘I can’t…’ She smiled through the darkness because her body was telling her otherwise, alert and back into action, desire’s drawstring tightening inside her. It had been left too long without him and demanded more.

  They made leisurely, sleepy love this time, breaking off to get the fire going, and again when Blair went to the bathroom to pee and Ronnie nipped downstairs to silence her dogs who were barking at nothing, egged on by Blair’s pack, fetching a bottle of water while she was there.

  Awash with San Pellegrino and tiredness, they lazily slipped into a favourite place, tightly slotted, face to face, knowing how and when to make the other come. Ronnie was trying to hide hiccups, making him laugh, his mirth shaking through her to speed her up deliciously. The dogs were barking again. Something clattered outside. The dog fox was still shouting its hoarse cry. It didn’t matter. They were there, letting out delighted groans, relieved they’d made it, still riding round twice and adoring one another all the more for it.

  Then they heard thudding above them as feet hurriedly crossed the attic landing to the back stairs.

  ‘Oh God we’ve woken Luca,’ Ronnie whispered into Blair’s hot skin.

  They both looked up as something clattered outside again, louder this time.

  A moment later, the dog cacophony stilled, then started up in earnest as the back door banged.

  ‘Is someone out there?’ Ronnie was alert now, adrenaline pumping.

  Blair peeled away and went to check at the window, silhouetted suddenly as the yard lights went on. He squinted into the bright light. ‘It’s bloody misty – I can only just see him. Hang on there is somebody else – on the other side of the wall. He’s onto it.’

  Ronnie hurriedly joined him, peering out through the mist to a triangle of light cast across Lester’s cottage garden and recognising the furry hat with earflaps and padded coat. ‘It’s Pax. Why is she up?’

  ‘You want me to go and check?’ Blair’s teeth were already chattering as the draughts from the old sash window bit into the freshly post-coital heat of his naked body.

  Ronnie folded her arms around him and watched Luca cross the yard to knock on the wall doorway to the garden, Pax opening it and beckoning him quickly in. From the way they huddled together talking, her daughter’s arm pointing to the big hutch by the back door and then the raised vegetable beds, she suspected there was no need for reinforcements. Perhaps the energy she’d sensed between them earlier was as sleepless as her own.

  ‘They’re fine.’ At least it had stopped her hiccups. ‘Come and warm me up again. The fire’s almost out.’ Taking his hand, she led him back to bed.

  ‘My fire’s never out, you know that, Ron.’ Blair landed beside her like a lion on a rock, wide awake again, pulling the covers right over them for warmth and kissing her shoulder.

  ‘You can’t possibly ride round a third time, surely?’

  ‘Let’s walk the course and find out, shall we?’

  *

  ‘I’ve lost Laurence,’ Pax told Luca in a low voice through the thick scarf that covered her face from the nose down, shining her torch around the garden.

  ‘Who’s Laurence?’ he asked, alarmed, wondering if there was a man lurking in the bushes.

  ‘Shh. Lester’s fox cub. He’s a bit of a wimp.’ The torch beam swung around the garden. ‘I let him out for a play as usual, only there’s a big dog fox barking in the spinney and he took fright and scarpered somewhere. He’s got to be in here.’ She sounded calm, tired and fed up. Definitely sober, Luca deduced, remembering that her boy was asleep in the cottage.

  She’d stomped into the corner illuminated by the yard lights and was peering into a bushy shrub. Wearing her coat and wellies over pyjamas, big mane tucked up in a furry hat and glasses propped on a cold red nose just above the high scarf, she looked strangely androgynous and alien.

  The L-shaped garden was enclosed by walls on all sides, two formed by the cottage at right angles to the high yard wall, the others made of well-laid Cotswold drystone capped with vertical topstones at chest height. It was unlikely the young fox could scale those, certainly not if he was terrified of what might be out there.

  ‘He’s normally close by,’ Pax explained as he helped her hunt through the borders, looking for the reflection of eyes in torchlight. ‘He likes digging in the veg beds. We’ve started to make friends, or so I thought.’

  ‘You always let this fox out in the middle of the night?’ Luca was incredulous.

  ‘I wake up every night at one like I’m alarmed. I’d only lie awake, overthinking, if I stayed in bed, and foxes are nocturnal so he’s happier playing at this time. Just twenty minutes or so. I let him out at dusk and dawn most days too when the chooks are in, although I need to be careful around the dogs. Knott loves playing with him, but Stubbs would finish him off in a breath.’

  Luca glanced across at the cottage where he’d spotted the bearded head of the fox terrier glaring at them through the cat flap
.

  ‘Laurence is only young,’ Pax was saying, rooting through a clump of scraggy foliage. ‘My guess is Lester will release him back into the wild when he’s old enough, after the season closes.’

  The yard’s work lights only lit about a third of the garden, the rest of it monotone in the low gleam of the bulkhead light by the back door, shadows pooled in the corners. There were a multitude of places to hide, old-established herbaceous borders packed tight with shrubs and perennials, a greenhouse, woodstore, compost heap and chicken run as well as the shed.

  ‘Have you tried bribing him?’ Luca asked, stifling a yawn.

  She flashed her torch across the grass lawn to reveal a trail of dogfood kibble and white cubes. ‘Feta. His favourite. There’s some bacon lardons and peanuts in there too. I’m keeping the balsamic glaze as an emergency measure only.’

  ‘How long have you been out here?’

  ‘About an hour,’ she checked her watch with a flash of torchlight on drawn back glove, ‘and a bit.’

  ‘You must be frozen through.’

  ‘Two layers of thermals,’ she reassured him, then noticed it was Luca who was shivering. ‘You go back to bed. I’ll find him. He always comes eventually.’

  ‘I want to help.’

  ‘Then at least have a hat.’ Before he could argue, she took off the big fur trapper’s one – revealing the pink bobble hat underneath it – and put it on Luca’s head, straight over his hoodie, his second coronation of the day.

  ‘There.’ She stepped back and tilted her head to admire him before quickly spinning around, trying to hide her laughter as she pointed the shaking torch around the wood store. Two reflected eyes gleamed back. ‘Aha!’

  But it was just a fat black rat that gave them a hard stare before disappearing behind the logs with a flick of its tail.

  The fur hat was incredibly warm, and he was grateful for it. He started to think straight.

  ‘Turn the torch off,’ he suggested, indicating for her to step into the shadows with him. ‘Let’s just stay still and see what happens.’