A Rural Affair

6

She was called Emma. Emma Harding. I remembered her coming up the road through the village. Remembered her little black Mini. A Mini Cooper. A cool car. One that in a vague, unformed sort of way, not that I was particularly into cars, but if I was, I’d quite like, if you know what I mean. And I’d seen it clearly, because I’d been dusting the windowsill at the time, lifting a lamp. It stopped outside my house. Out got Emma, pretty, petite, blonde, her shoulder-length hair swinging as she turned to shut the car door behind her. A white smocky top, jeans, beaded mules. Oh, and a flimsy sparkly scarf round her neck, pale blue and silver: nice. Sort of Monsoony. I watched as she came up the path, surprised it was my house she was approaching. She saw me through the window: stopped and waved uncertainly. I went to the door. I remembered her smile. Shy. Nervous. She was ever so sorry to call unannounced, she said, hands fiddling with the strap of her shoulder bag; she knew this was a terrible time for me.

I frowned. ‘Sorry, do I … ?’

‘My name’s Emma Harding. I was a friend of Phil’s. A good friend.’

I didn’t think anything of it. She followed me through to the sitting room, and as I turned her eyes finally met mine, so nervous, like a scared rabbit. And I motioned her to sit on the goose-poo sofa and then sat down opposite her, duster still in hand. And in that instant, I knew where I’d seen her before. At the funeral. She’d been crying a lot. Head bowed, hanky to mouth, in a black wool suit, quite elegant. And someone had an arm protectively around her shoulders, one of Phil’s cycling friends. His wife, perhaps, I’d thought. Perhaps not. And I’d been rather ashamed because I wasn’t crying. Not like that.

She started to speak, in a low, unsteady voice, hands twisting. She and Phil had met at work. They’d tried not to … you know. Had resisted each other for ages in fact, denied the attraction, but at a conference in Manchester … well, it all got out of control, seeing as how they were away from home. And then over the last four years … well, they’d completely fallen in love. And of course there was their cycling, which they did at weekends. Nearly every weekend. And she, Emma, knew it was so wrong, but she wasn’t married, you see, wasn’t betraying anyone. And Phil was so lonely. So sad.

Emma looked anxiously at me. White-faced. Scared. Fingers in her sparkly scarf in perpetual motion.

‘Why are you telling me this?’ I managed. Found my voice which was hidden deep in my ribcage. Cowering there.

‘Because I know Phil provided for me. I know, in his will, he made a provision, because we’d been together so long, and I want you to know,’ her voice began to tremble, ‘I want you to know I don’t want any of it.’

I stared straight ahead into the school playground where I was standing right now with Archie in his pushchair, waiting for Clemmie. My eyes felt dry and gritty with lack of sleep. I remembered her eyes, though: full of grief. Full of proper mourning. And I’d been humming as I’d dusted the window ledge that morning. Just a little bit, but still.

‘Mrs Shilling?’ Miss Hawkins was beside me suddenly, her anxious face in mine. ‘Mrs Shilling, have you got a moment?’

Clemmie was by her side, holding her teacher’s skirt. Eyes downcast she was sucking her thumb, something she hadn’t done during the day for ages. Luckily, Archie was crying in his pushchair; had been for some time.

‘I just wanted to talk to you about the other day,’ Miss Hawkins was saying, having to raise her voice over Archie’s wails. ‘When you forgot to collect Clemmie?’

‘I’m sorry, Miss Hawkins, I really need to get Archie home. He wants a bottle.’

Such a long sentence, but somehow I got to the end of it. Then silently I took Clemmie’s hand, which hadn’t instinctively reached for mine, and we set off down the hill, Miss Hawkins’s eyes, I knew, boring into my back. Archie was still sobbing, but he cried a lot these days. All morning, sometimes. Perhaps he was missing his sunny mother, wondering who this withdrawn, distrait woman was, this impostor.

When I turned the corner at the bottom, my cottage came into view. A familiar red pick-up was parked outside. It hadn’t been there when I set off for the nursery a few minutes ago. It did occasionally rock up without warning, but usually after a gap of a few months and I’d seen Dad relatively recently at the funeral. Besides which we’d spoken a bit since. Dad and I were close, but we were self-sufficient souls and I’d imagined we were pretty much familied out. He was emerging from the pick-up – still minus its radiator grill, I noticed, which he’d left in a hedge some years since – in his working wardrobe of breeches, boots and an ancient checked shirt. He turned and waited, hands on his hips, as I came down the lane towards him.

‘Hello, love.’ He looked anxious, his bright blue eyes searching mine.

‘Hi, Dad. What are you doing here?’

‘Grandpa!’ Clemmie’s face lit up and she let go of my hand to run to him. He scooped her up, beaming.

‘That’s my girl! Hey, look at you. Been painting?’

‘No, we had ketchup for tea last night.’

‘Did you, by Jove. Well, you need a flannel. You’ve got it on your rabbit dress too.’ He prodded her chest.

‘Yes and I’m allowed to wear it every day. But I don’t want to wear it tomorrow.’

‘Wise move, Clem.’ He put her down.

Archie had stopped crying and was smiling and kicking his legs vigorously in his pushchair in his grandfather’s direction. Dad bent to tickle his knees, peering up at me the while.

‘Everything all right, love?’

‘Fine, thanks,’ I said as he straightened up to plant a kiss on my cheek. ‘Coming in?’

‘Well, I thought I might.’

I turned to open the gate and he followed me up the path. ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ I asked over my shoulder. ‘This is a busy time for you, isn’t it?’

Dad dealt in horses, hunters in particular, and the beginning of the season was usually frantic. He spent every spare moment getting his mounts fit and then was either showing them off to prospective buyers or sending them out as hirelings to go cub hunting, often accompanying his clients if they were nervous.

He scratched his head. ‘Oh … I was passing. There’s an Irish Draught cross near here I might have a look at. Good blood lines, apparently.’

‘Oh, right. Where?’ I let us in.

‘Um …’ He cast about wildly and his eyes lit on an estate agent’s board opposite. ‘Dunstable?’

‘Dunstable’s pretty urban, Dad. In someone’s back yard, is it?’

‘Something like that.’

We went inside.

‘Everything all right, Pops?’

‘You’ve already asked me that,’ I said as he overtook me and crossed busily to open the sitting-room curtains in the darkened room, then stooped on his way back to pick up the ketchup-smeared plates from the carpet. He took them into the kitchen looking anxious. And my dad isn’t domestic.

I made him a cup of tea except there wasn’t any milk, whilst the children leaped all over him excitedly. I had a feeling he’d come for more than a cup of tea, though, so I flicked Fireman Sam onto the little kitchen telly to immobilize my offspring for five minutes and handed them each a chocolate bar. Dad eyed them nervously.

‘Lunch?’

‘Well, you know. Needs must, occasionally.’

Gosh, he looked terrible. Really worried. I did hope the business wasn’t in trouble. Dad claimed the recession hadn’t hit the horse-trading world, but maybe that was just a line he’d spun me, and maybe it had? Or had he come off one of his green four-year-olds and not told me? I did worry about him still breaking in horses at his age, but the trouble was, both Dad and I were so non-controlling, we couldn’t begin to tell each other what to do. Back in the sitting room, we sipped our tea, side by side on the sofa.

‘I felt a bit bad abandoning you like that after the funeral,’ he said at length.

I frowned. This was about as deep as it got. ‘You didn’t abandon me. You just went home.’

‘I know, but …’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘You know. I could have helped a bit. Should have pre-empted this. Anyway.’ He swallowed. ‘You were always in my mind.’

My father was a big Elvis fan and, in times of stress, tended to mangle his song lyrics. Things were clearly bad. In a minute he’d be telling me about the little things he should have said or done if he’d just taken the time. ‘Little –’

‘Dad.’ I interrupted quickly.

‘Hm?’ He looked at me. Blinked in recognition. ‘Oh. Right.’ He nodded. ‘Well, anyway, I’m here now. Better late than never, I suppose. And Jennie and I wondered if I shouldn’t … or if you shouldn’t …’ He hesitated and I waited, surprised. He and Jennie? He hadn’t seen Jennie since the funeral. ‘Well, look, love,’ he said, summoning up something really quite portentous, ‘what I wondered was, whether you’d like to come and stay for a bit?’

I frowned. ‘What, at Grotty Cotty?’ Dad’s cottage was so called because it was unfeasibly chaotic: full of half-cleaned tack and saddle soap, riddled with damp and reeking of a heady combination of horses, dogs, Neatsfoot oil, socks and whisky. It was an extremely ripe bachelor pad and totally unsuitable for children – who of course loved it – but still.

‘That’s kind, Dad,’ I said, speechless. ‘But no thanks.’

‘Or I could come here?’

Now I really was concerned. Dad couldn’t leave his yard for five minutes, let alone stay the night. The mere fact that he’d dropped in for a cup of tea was quite something. Suddenly I went cold.

‘Oh God, Dad, has it all collapsed? The business? Gone tits up?’

‘No! No, it’s going well, couldn’t be better. I sold three eventers last week, one to Mark Todd’s yard. No, it’s just … well, I’m worried about you.’ He put his arm around me awkwardly.

‘Me?’

‘I’m there for you, love. If you need me.’

I nodded, thunderstruck.

‘And I love you, my darling. Always will.’

I gazed down, trying to place it. ‘ “Love Me Tender”?’

He sighed. ‘Could be. Anyway,’ he said, removing his arm, ‘if you’re sure you’re all right …’ He patted my back tentatively and we sat there in silence. ‘Um … d’you want me to get the kids some lunch?’

‘They’ve just had it,’ I said incredulously, convinced I’d already told him that. Hadn’t we just had that conversation? Literally moments ago? Now I was really alarmed. Alzheimer’s?

Dad got up and took his cup into the kitchen. He also spent ten minutes washing up a toppling tower of crockery already in the sink, which was kind but very unlike him, then he came back looking a bit wretched, and then, finally, he left. As he went down the garden path, I watched from the open doorway. He wasn’t looking where he was going and nearly collided with a statuesque middle-aged woman in a tightly belted pea-green coat, spectacles and a purposeful air.

‘Ah, hello there.’ She peered around Dad to address me on the doorstep, her smile not quite reaching her eyes.

‘Hello.’

‘I’m Trisha Newson, from Social Services.’

I gazed at her down the path. Dad had gone quite pale.

‘Um, could I have a word?’ he was muttering, drawing her away and around my little beech hedge. I stood there pondering. Giving it some thought. Suddenly it came to me. Ah yes, Mrs Harper, next door. She went to the Chiltern Hospital every month in an ambulance, about her veins.

‘Next door,’ I called to them over the hedge, as Dad frogmarched her away. ‘Mrs Harper is next door.’

They didn’t appear to hear me, though, so I shrugged and shut the door. Fireman Sam was still going strong in the kitchen and I knew that particular DVD was good for another hour or so and Clemmie knew how to put another one on after that, so I went upstairs to lie down on the bed for a bit.

That afternoon, against my better instincts, I paid a visit to Phil’s solicitor. I’d hoped Jennie might have forgotten, that it might have slipped her mind, but cometh the hour, cometh the neighbour, bustling up my path well before the appointed meeting. I’d considered being out, or hiding in the cellar and shutting all the curtains, or just point-blank refusing to go, but knowing with a sinking heart any such prevarications would provoke awkward questions, I acquiesced. I felt very much as if I were en route to the gallows, though. Surely this was when the will would be read? Colour what was left of my life?

‘Would you like me to come in with you?’ Jennie asked as we got the children ready. ‘There might be a receptionist or someone we could leave the kids with?’

‘Absolutely not,’ I told her, so vehemently I think we were both startled. I straightened up from buckling Clemmie’s shoes to stare at her, aware my eyes were glittering.

‘OK, Pops,’ she said gently, ‘that’s fine. I’ll wait outside.’

I could see her thinking it was the most emotion I’d shown for a while.

Nevertheless she insisted on driving me into town, telling me I’d never find it – I can’t think why, it was right next to the town hall, slap bang in the middle of the high street. But apparently I needed to be dropped at the door, wear a certain shirt and skirt she’d picked out, wash my face and brush my hair. So bossy. Clearly the man I was bidden to meet did not have a bossy best friend, though, because not only had he forgotten to brush his hair, he had biscuit crumbs all down his front.

I had to climb a few flights of stairs to achieve his office and although Jennie was going to sit with the children in the car, in a sudden diversion from the script Archie had refused to be parted from me and had a shouty-crackers tantrum in the car, so that by the time I’d got to the top of the stairs with my son in my arms, sobbed-out now and quiescent, I was panting rather. A couple of doors faced me with very little clue to the content of the rooms beyond so I pushed through the nearest one and into a reception area. No receptionist, just a rather messy waiting room with a few magazines strewn around and another couple of doors on the far side. Feeling on the verge of a great escape but knowing Jennie wouldn’t be satisfied unless I gave it one last shot – might even bound up the stairs and insist on seeing for herself – I decided to push one of them open and if that didn’t yield a solicitor, call it a day.

The door was stiff so I turned and used my shoulder to barge it open, employing slightly too much force so that when I flew through with Archie in my arms, slipping on one of many pieces of paper that littered the carpet, it was in a manner reminiscent of a couple from the Ballet Rambert practising a new and complicated lift. The room was small and our faltering pirouette ended at a leather-topped desk. Behind it sat a muscular man dipping a Jammy Dodger into a mug of tea. He gazed in astonishment as I spun to a halt. His hair was dark and tousled and in need of a cut, and he had very broad shoulders. He looked like a rugby player who’d been squeezed into a pink shirt for the occasion and was slightly uncomfortable with it. Even in my tuned-out state, I could see he was handsome. He hastily put down the biscuit brushing a few crumbs from his shirt and got to his feet, hand extended.

‘Oh – er, I’m so sorry, I didn’t hear you knock.’

‘D’you know, I’m not sure I did.’

‘Mrs Hastings?’

‘No, Mrs Shilling.’ I brushed some hair from my eyes and shifted Archie onto my other hip in order to shake the hand he offered.

‘Oh.’ He looked surprised. ‘Really?’

‘Well, I’m fairly sure.’ I managed a smile but then felt a bit peculiar. A bit … light-headed. Must have been the stairs. And not sleeping for two nights. I needed to sit down. I reached behind me for a chair, which happily existed, and sank gratefully into it with Archie on my lap. The tousled man sat too, hastily consulting an open file in front of him and quickly shoving the packet of biscuits in a drawer.

‘Right. Mrs Shilling. So … your husband hasn’t run off with a Portuguese baggage handler, brackets male, from Heathrow?’ He glanced up, a rather nice quizzical gleam to a pair of deep brown eyes: amused eyes. ‘And you didn’t snap his golf clubs and then replace them in his golf bag before he flew to Sotegrande for a week with said baggage handler?’

‘No, my husband died a few weeks ago.’

He looked horrified. ‘Oh, Christ. Oh, God. I’m terribly sorry.’ He really looked it. He shut the file and tossed it to one side, running his hands through his hair. ‘How very crass of me, I do apologize.’

‘Please don’t worry.’

He looked genuinely upset. As he turned hastily to consult a computer screen on his desk, no doubt flicking up my notes, I took the opportunity to wonder how he’d squeezed those shoulders into that shirt. The sleeves were rolled up, a tie abandoned on the desk. For some reason he reminded me of Archie, the one and only time I’d tried to dress him smartly, for the funeral. His buttons had flown off in seconds flat.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he was murmuring as he peered at the screen and tapped away with the mouse. ‘As you might have noticed I’m minus a receptionist at the moment. Janice’s mother is ill, so I’m slightly rudderless. She usually points me in the right direction.’

‘Temp?’ I hazarded.

He turned from the screen to gaze at me. ‘Sorry?’

My sentences were sometimes somewhat truncated these days and I took a deep breath and tried again. ‘You could get a temporary secretary.’

He gazed at me a moment, then his face cleared. ‘What a completely brilliant idea. D’you know, that hadn’t occurred to me.’ He scribbled it down on a pad, cast me another quick, admiring look, then went back to the screen. ‘Ah yes, it’s all becoming horribly clear. Mrs Hastings is coming in next Tuesday, whereas you’re coming in today. I’ve got the dates muddled up. Mrs Hastings probably wants to know if she can change the locks and sell his Jaguar SJS, whereas you’re here to talk about a will, which at this precise moment is at home on top of the linen basket in my bathroom.’

‘Your bathroom?’

‘I took the papers home to read last night. Left them upstairs.’

‘Oh. Right.’

‘Sorry, too much information, it’s just I often read papers in the bath. I find a rush of blood to the head helps the grey matter.’

‘Fair enough, I read novels in the bath.’

‘Although I seem to remember I didn’t quite get to the Shilling bundle, I only got as far as the dusky bag handler. I do apologize, Mrs Shilling, you’ve come on a wild goose chase. Not only hasn’t your solicitor read the papers, he’s left them at home.’ He turned from the screen and held out his wrists across the desk. ‘Cuff. Or slap.’ He put them down and looked grave. ‘Or even fire, possibly. I would.’

I smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not fussed. I’m not sure I’m up to discussing wills yet, actually, but one of my friends insisted.’

‘Did she? Oh, well, unless you’re totally insolvent there’s no immediate hurry. Nothing that can’t wait. Come back when you’re ready, if you like.’

‘Really?’ I stood up gratefully. ‘Thanks. I might do that.’ I had no idea if I was solvent or not. Just put the bills in a drawer. ‘It may even be a few weeks yet.’

He too got to his feet. ‘Which gives me plenty of time to retrieve your precious bundle from my laundry basket and give it the attention it deserves – couldn’t be better.’

We both smiled, equally pleased, I suspect, with the outcome of the meeting: both feeling we’d got a result. He went quickly ahead of me to hold the door as I picked my way back across his floor – him apologizing for the mess and me assuring him it couldn’t matter less and that it was a bit like playing Twister with my children – and as I went through Janice’s room and towards the stairwell, I was aware of him watching me from his doorway.

Outside in the street, Jennie was hunched at the wheel looking stressed, her car on a double-yellow line.

‘Well?’ she demanded, as I popped Archie in his seat beside Clemmie, buckling him in. I got in the front.

‘Yes, it was fine.’

‘What d’you mean, it was fine? Oh, piss off!’ This, to a traffic warden who was attempting to take down her number plate. She lunged out into the traffic to thwart him amid a blare of horns.

‘I mean, it’s fine, it’s all in hand. But there are a few incidentals to be sorted out, so I’m going to pop back in a few weeks.’

‘A few weeks!’ She turned to look at me, horrified.

‘Days. I mean, days. But I’ll manage, Jennie, now I know where the office is. I’ll be fine on my own.’ I felt exhausted suddenly. Really lie-down-on-the-pavement exhausted.

‘Well, I’m surprised you have to go back at all, to be honest,’ she said hotly, raking a hand through her hair. ‘Wasn’t it all there at his fingertips? Didn’t he just read it out to you? The will? He’s not disorganized, is he?’ She shot me a quick look.

‘Not in the slightest.’

‘Only someone – I think Laura Davy – said he’s a bit chaotic. She went when they took her mother’s appendix out instead of her hernia and said he was all over the place. You do realize he’s not Phil’s solicitor, don’t you?’ she said sharply.

‘Er …’ So many questions.

‘No, he died. This is the nephew, who’s inherited the practice.’

‘Ah.’

‘I checked it all out when I made the appointment, because I didn’t think the name corresponded to the letterhead. The uncle was well known locally apparently, whereas this one is a bit of an unknown quantity. He was in a big City firm in London but his wife left him and he came out here for a quieter life, wanted a change of pace, which is all very well, but just because we’re parochial doesn’t mean we’re stupid, does it? And if he can’t get his head round a simple will …’ She set her mouth in a grim line and shook her head. ‘He’s got to shape up, I’m afraid, or he’s toast.’

I thought of the pink shirt, slightly strained at the shoulder seams.

‘He’s in quite good shape, actually,’ I said vaguely. ‘And he’s extremely organized. I think he’ll do very well. What’s his name?’

She turned, aghast. ‘You don’t even know his name?’

‘Of course I do, I just forgot.’

‘Sam Hetherington.’

‘That’s it. Don’t bully me, Jennie, I’m feeling a bit all-in as a matter of fact.’

I was. Truly tired. Relieved to have got that over with but exhausted with the effort. And I certainly wasn’t up to my son wailing again from the back seat. Since when had he started to cry so much? He used to be such a good baby. I leaned back on the headrest and shut my eyes.

‘There’s a carton of juice in my handbag,’ Jennie told me.

I opened my eyes. Turned my head slowly to her. ‘D’you want it now?’

‘No, but Archie might,’ she said patiently.

‘Oh.’

I leaned down and fumbled obediently in her handbag at my feet, found the Ribena and handed it to Archie, sticking the straw in first. He put it to his lips, squeezed the carton with his fist and the juice went shooting out of the straw, all over his face and down his front. For some reason Clemmie, beside him on her booster seat, burst into tears.

‘You forgot to say don’t squeeze!’ she wailed. ‘You always say don’t squeeze!’

Archie gazed at his soaking-wet jumper in dismay, opened his mouth as wide as he could and roared, dropping the juice on the floor. Jennie swore under her breath then reached behind for Clemmie’s ankle, stroking it and making soothing noises, reaching for Archie’s too. As we drove home, amid the inexplicable cacophony of my fractious children, Jennie shot me an exasperated look which I caught in surprise. Was there a law, I wondered, as I gazed out of the window at the increasingly bare branches of the trees as they flashed past, the sun appearing between them like a searchlight, against just sitting quietly the while? About having a little hush?