A Rural Affair

9

A few days later I received a surprisingly efficient missive from my solicitor in the form of an email, apologizing for our disorganized inaugural meeting and wondering if I had time to ‘pop in for a second attempt’. I did, as it happened, the following afternoon, and since he too was free, a meeting was arranged. As I sat in his supremely tidy waiting room, watched over by a pleasantly plump blonde matron with pussycat-bow chiffon blouse, navy skirt and red nails, I realized something of a sea change had occurred here since my last visit. When I was shown into his office it became all the more seismic as Sam Hetherington stood up to greet me, spotty tie firmly in place, suit jacket on, papers and files previously littering the floor now neatly aligned on shelves behind him, no half-empty mugs of tea, and no sign of the very dead spider plant wilting on his windowsill.

‘You’ve scrubbed up,’ I said in surprise as we shook hands across his desk.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Funny. I was thinking the same about you. Didn’t know one was allowed to voice it.’

I laughed. ‘I meant your room, actually.’

He looked taken aback. ‘Oh. Right. Sorry, it’s just Janice insists I wear a tie so I assumed you meant … However, you do look better,’ he concluded awkwardly as we both sat down.

I smiled. ‘Thanks. I’m feeling much better.’

I realized the last time I’d been in here I’d been sporting clothes that had seen better days and hair that hadn’t seen a brush for a while. It also occurred to me that his own dark wavy hair together with eyes the colour of good Madeira was my most favourite combination.

‘Janice makes you wear a tie?’ I said as I settled back into my seat.

He sighed. ‘Janice rules my life in very many ways. And thank the Lord she does. She has an uncanny insight into the mind of the prospective client and their sartorial expectations. Apparently shirt sleeves and an open collar simply will not do, suggestive as they are of a chaotic mind and careless approach to business and not a tireless toiling over the brief. So yes, she makes me wear a tie.’ He smiled. ‘Now. What can I do for you?’

‘You asked me to come in.’

His dark eyes widened in surprise. ‘So I did. So I did.’ He hastened to collect himself and shuffled some papers around. ‘It’s all coming back to me. Of course. There’s a will.’

‘And where there’s a will, there’s a relative,’ I quipped.

He frowned. ‘Sorry?’

‘Oh, er, bad-taste joke,’ I said hastily, remembering Jennie’s terse reprimand to behave. I sat up straight. ‘You’re right, I’m here about my husband’s will.’

‘Which I’ve got right here.’

He picked up a wad of papers from his desk and flourished it triumphantly, almost as if that in itself was something of an achievement. Then he put it down and gazed reflectively. Glanced up and met my eye.

‘You’re a wealthy woman, Mrs Shilling.’

I blanched. ‘Am I?’

‘Well, compared to me you are. Compared to most people. Your husband ran a flourishing private-equity firm and made a lot of money which you’re now entitled to. Added to which he also took out an insurance policy in 2002 which has quadrupled in value in the last eight years.’ He passed a piece of paper to me across the desk, swivelling it simultaneously. A sea of figures swam before my eyes. ‘Bottom right,’ he said kindly, pointing.

There, nestling in the column he indicated, was a figure so colossal I wondered for a moment if it had been translated into drachmas. If Phil, who after all had had a secret mistress, was also secretly Greek? But there was a pound sign before it.

‘Good grief. Have we always had that much?’

‘No, it falls in on his death. It’s insurance.’

‘And is it all mine?’

‘On an annual basis, yes.’

‘Annual. You mean … not a lump sum?’

‘No, that’s what you’ll receive every year.’

I looked up. Stared. He gave me a level gaze back.

‘Blimey,’ I said somewhat inadequately. ‘I had no idea.’

‘He provided for you very well.’

‘Yes. Gosh. Didn’t he?’ I said humbly. I realized I’d been less than complimentary about my late husband recently. ‘But you’re sure it’s all entailed on me?’

He retrieved the paper. Whisked it around to peruse it. ‘ “In the event of my death,” ’ he read out, ‘ “all my estate to be bestowed on my wife.” ’ He looked up. ‘That’s you, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Seems clear enough.’

‘No other dependants?’

‘Well, your children, obviously, if you die.’

‘Obviously.’

‘But no bequests to other relatives, no.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s not a detailed will, but then it wouldn’t be. People don’t expect to die at thirty-four.’ He started to shuffle it all back together.

‘You’ve read all of it, have you?’ I said nervously. He was a bit more on the ball today but he had struck me as slightly shambolic, previously.

He paused. Looked up. ‘Yes, I’ve read all of it. I passed my law exams too.’

‘Sorry. It’s just …’

‘There’s a mother?’

‘Well, yes, but –’

‘There often is.’ He glanced at the papers again. ‘No, not provided for.’

‘A sister too,’ I said, playing for time. ‘Cecilia Shilling?’

He ran his eyes over it again. ‘Nope.’

‘And, um, someone called … Emma Harding.’

‘Emma Harding.’ He frowned. ‘Why do I know that name?’ He read again. Took his time this time. When he’d finished, he looked at me more intently. ‘Not here.’

‘Sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘May I see?’

‘Be my guest.’

He passed the relevant page across and I scanned it quickly. Then I breathed out slowly. When I looked up, he had his head on one side. He was regarding me closely, brown eyes watchful.

‘Relieved?’

‘Very.’

‘Special friend?’ he said gently.

‘So … I was led to believe.’ I swallowed. Passed the will back. There was a poignant silence.

‘Mrs Shilling …’

‘Poppy.’

‘Poppy. Often people – well, men, in particular – promise all sorts of things, all kinds of – provision, and then never follow through. I’ve seen it before. Family, inevitably, comes first. Most people are careful about that.’

‘So it seems. In fact it seems …’ I hesitated, ‘that he’s been extremely … careful.’ I felt a stab of guilt, remembering how I’d recently maligned him. Very publicly. In church, no less, to Angus. Said I was delighted he’d gone. Told Mrs Cripps in the shop I felt blooming marvellous. I had felt marvellous. Euphoric even. But suddenly I felt wretched. Could feel myself shrivelling. Life was so complicated. My feelings were so complicated. Mood swings, violent ones, flung me this way and that as if I had no control, as I lurched from one revelation to the next. A good revelation, in this case: Phil had more than provided for us. But when would I find an even keel? A little perspective? It was all so exhausting.

Sam’s voice broke into my thoughts. ‘He has indeed. Temperament, of course, is key. Was he a methodical man?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tidy?’

‘Oh God, yes. Obsessive.’

‘Those are often the ones who squirrel money away. And if they do it early – in your husband’s case the moment you got married – it mounts up quickly.’ He sighed. ‘People who live by the seat of their pants, on the other hand, often discover there’s nothing for their dependants in the kitty when they look. See my ex-wife on this one.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. She married my best friend, who’s infinitely more solvent than I am.’ He grinned. ‘So all’s well that ends well.’

I was taken aback. ‘You don’t mind?’

‘That he’s richer than me?’

‘No, no I meant …’

‘Oh, I see.’ He paused.

‘Sorry,’ I said quickly, blushing. ‘Absolutely none of my business.’

‘No, but then again I brought it up.’ He seemed to hesitate. Then he shifted in his seat: a regrouping gesture. ‘Anyway, back to you.’ He cleared his throat. ‘This colossal sum of money will plop reassuringly into your bank account on an annual basis unless you leave further and better particulars to the contrary. Unless you have plans perhaps to reinvest it on the stock market, or on the roulette tables of Monte Carlo, the horses in Deauville …?’

‘No, no plans. Let it plop.’

‘In which case I’ll leave instructions with the bank for that to happen when all the paperwork’s been seen to. This copy is yours,’ he handed me a pristine document, ‘to peruse at your leisure, and I’ll keep this one for the files.’

‘Right. Thank you, Mr Hetherington.’

We looked at each other. The meeting appeared to be over.

‘Sam.’

‘Sam.’

I stood up, not without a tinge of regret. Tall. Very tall, I thought as he also got to his feet, to shake my hand. I’d forgotten that. Burly almost, with that rugby-player physique, as he came round the desk to show me out. Nice eyes that crinkled at the corners and almost disappeared when he smiled, like now, as he went to open the door for me.

As I passed under his arm, a thought occurred. I turned.

‘Do you read, Sam?’

‘Read?’

‘Yes, books. For pleasure. Novels, that kind of thing.’

He shrugged. ‘A bit. Biographies, mainly. Oh, and Nick Hornby, if he’s got a new one out. Why?’ He smiled down at me.

I smiled too, trying to replicate the crinkling-eyes effect. ‘Just wondered.’

Jennie had had the children for me and I popped next door to collect them when I returned. As I entered her kitchen a clutch of ghosts turned to look at me. Closer inspection revealed that Hannah, Jennie’s youngest, was making cakes and that everyone, including my children, was covered in flour. Jennie looked harassed.

‘You are a star, Jennie,’ I said, going quickly to relieve her of at least two of the young chefs. ‘Have they been all right? No trouble?’

‘Total heaven.’

Archie opened his mouth and started to wail.

‘But of course they always do that when their mother appears. How did it go?’

‘Really well,’ I said eagerly, scooping Archie up, then I became aware of Clemmie’s huge eyes on me as she caught my tone. Perhaps not the moment.

‘Pas devant les enfants,’ Jennie agreed quickly. ‘Tell me later. Are you all right?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘You’re smiling in a funny way, like you’ve got a headache. Your eyes are all crinkled up.’

‘I thought it was attractive.’

‘No, it’s not. Oh – here, Archie did a picture.’ She thrust a still-wet painting into my hand then hastened round the table to where her daughter, on a stool, was tipping an entire packet of currants into the mixing bowl.

‘Not all of them, Hannah!’ she cried.

I left her to it, but her phone rang as I passed it in the hall. I stopped, Archie on my hip.

‘D’you want me to get it?’ I called back.

‘Please. And I’m not here. Hannah – darling, woah!’

I picked up the receiver. ‘Oh, hi, Dan.’

Jennie stopped what she was doing. Her back stiffened, hunched over the mixing bowl. She turned, in listening attitude, as I listened too.

‘OK, hang on,’ I told him. I cleared my throat. Put the phone to my chest.

‘He’s at the station,’ I relayed calmly. ‘But he’s had a teensy bit too much to drink, so he thinks the responsible thing might be not to drive home.’

‘Which station?’

‘Our station.’

‘I thought he was staying the night in Leeds?’

I replaced the phone to my ear. ‘She thought you were staying in Leeds?’ I listened. Turned back to her. ‘The meeting was cancelled because the media buyer’s mother was rushed to hospital. He just had lunch there and came back.’

‘Well, that’s something, I suppose,’ said Jennie grimly. ‘Bloody man took my overnight case instead of his. I’ve just found his, all packed and ready in the wardrobe. Idiot.’

‘That’ll teach you to have smart his and hers luggage,’ I told her.

‘There’s nothing smart about this marriage, Poppy. So he wants me to pick him up, does he?’ She said testily, her hands covered in sticky gloopy flour.

‘I’ll go,’ I said quickly, as her nostrils began to flare ominously.

‘Bloody man. So irresponsible. Why does he always have to get pissed? And then we’ve got another car sitting at the station – marvellous!’

‘We’ll both go,’ I placated her. ‘And then you can drive the other one back. Come on, Jennie, it’s not the end of the world.’

‘It’s the beginning of the end of the world,’ she grumbled, wiping her hands on a tea towel and grabbing her car keys. ‘Frankie!’ she yelled upstairs as she marched down the hall towards me. ‘Can you come and finish Hannah’s cakes? I’m going to get your father.’

There was a silence. Then: ‘I’m busy.’

Jennie looked fit to bust. ‘Just come down now and look after your brother and sister for me for two minutes!’

Frankie appeared at the top of the stairs. Her face was very pale.

‘Of course, Jennie. Whatever you say, Jennie.’

I followed Jennie down the path to my car.

‘She all right?’ I said lightly as I strapped the children in the back.

‘Frankie? No, she’s a complete and utter nightmare at the moment.’

I was silent. I never found her so. ‘Maybe she feels she’s a bit put-upon? Babysitting all the time? She does a lot.’

‘She’s their sister, Poppy, of course she does.’

‘Yes, but if she’s busy, you know, doing her homework or whatever …’

Jennie snorted. ‘Don’t give me that. She’s up there running up her mobile bill and gassing to her friends about how to pull a boy – or worse.’

I looked at her as we pulled out.

‘I don’t mean that,’ she mumbled. ‘You know I don’t mean that. But she’s tricky, Poppy. It’s a tricky age. And I lose patience sometimes.’

‘But you encourage her, you know, in her work, and everything?’ I persevered.

‘Well, I don’t sit testing her on trigonometry, if that’s what you mean. I assume she’s of an age when she’ll get it done and still manage to help me out occasionally.’

I fell silent as I drove. There weren’t many areas Jennie and I disagreed on, but this was one of them. I knew Frankie felt like unpaid labour and I deliberately overpaid her whenever she sat for me, which I knew she enjoyed: the peace and quiet of a house where young children were put to bed early, my kitchen table all to herself. No demands made on her, no rows, just silence. We drove on past the fields where the race horses galloped, then swung into the station forecourt, which was only a mile or so down the road, but, with Dan’s track record, not to be driven from under any circumstances if he was even vaguely over the limit. Jennie’s rule, obviously, which he’d sensibly adhered to, and I was about to remind her of this, but a glance at my friend’s stony profile beside me dissuaded me. It was a look I’d seen on her face a lot lately, and one she’d never worn when we were younger. Now it would flit across her face regularly, and I tried to put my finger on what it was: oh yes, resentment. Something else too. A faintly hectic gleam to the eyes. Defiant, perhaps. Something Peggy said the other day almost drifted back to me, but not quite. About Jennie. Something surprising. When we were talking about forming the book club. What was it? Laying no claim to a hair-trigger memory, though, and having been recently struggling under a blanket of black cloud, I couldn’t remember. I sighed. Lost for ever, no doubt, beneath the fog of shock and numbness and downright crippling depression I’d been feeling at the time. I gave myself a little shake. Thank heavens that was over, anyway.

‘At least it’s on time,’ I said cheerfully, as heads began to appear up the steps from the platform and commuters dribbled out of the exit. We were a tiny station and not many people alighted here; most got off at Milton Keynes, further down the track. We waited.

‘Still no Toad,’ she said darkly.

‘There he is!’ I said, relieved, as the top of his head, hair swept back like an ocean wave from a high forehead and piercing blue eyes, came into view. He looked a little sheepish, I thought.

‘What is he wearing!’ gasped Jennie as the rest of him appeared.

From the waist up he was in a perfectly normal linen jacket, shirt and tie, but something strange was going on below. Instead of trousers, something pale pink with daisies clung to his legs and hung around his crotch. Woollen, like leggings.

‘It’s my jumper!’ cried Jennie.

It was indeed. Very stretched. And Dan seemed to be sporting it upside down with his legs through the arms, as it were. Hairy shins, grey socks and brogues protruded. As he approached us, I realized that to his left, very much walking with him, escorting him, perhaps, was a policeman. Dan’s habitually jaunty, devil-may-care attitude seemed to have deserted him. He looked pale; stricken, even.

‘Oh dear God,’ Jennie breathed, as we both leaped out of the car.

‘Hello, darling,’ said Dan, with the faintest of smiles and terrified eyes.

‘Why are you wearing my jumper like that, Dan? Don’t tell me you’re a fucking transvestite as well?’

‘There’s a very simple explanation, love.’

‘Don’t call me love. Are you a transvestite? Just tell me now, please.’

‘Ah, so it is your jumper, is it, madam?’ interjected the policeman.

‘Sadly, yes.’

‘And he is your husband?’

‘Even more sadly.’

‘In that case, sir, I imagine your story holds water. Just checking,’ he assured Jennie, as he turned back to her. ‘Only, we can’t be too careful. We had a couple of complaints from people on the train; they rang in, so we had to check it out. Had to meet him off the train and ensure he wasn’t … well, you know. A danger.’

‘Oh, he’s a danger all right,’ she said grimly.

‘Thank you, officer,’ I said quickly. The policeman seemed to be rather enjoying this now, his mouth twitching. ‘I’m sure we’ll be fine now. So sorry to have troubled you.’

‘No trouble at all,’ he said, giving Jennie a nod. As he turned to go he grinned and gave Dan a huge wink. ‘Good luck, mate!’

‘Right, mate,’ snapped Jennie when he was out of earshot. ‘What exactly is your story?’

‘It’s very simple, love.’

‘Don’t –’ she shut her eyes for a long moment – ‘call me love.’

‘I had a rather hot vindaloo at lunchtime in Leeds, and perhaps a few too many beers with Ken from marketing – you know how he overdoes it – and then, on the way home, I experienced a spot of turbulence.’

‘Trains don’t do turbulence, Dan. You’re not on a bloody jumbo.’

‘No, I meant internally.’

His wife stared, uncomprehending.

‘I had an overconfident fart and soiled myself.’

There was an appalled silence.

‘Yes, so I went to the lavatory,’ Dan ploughed on heroically, ‘to sort myself out, and since my trousers and pants were beyond the pale, I threw them out of the window, sensibly having brought my overnight case in with me; except when I opened it, I realized I’d brought your case instead. Happily, though, you’d left an old jumper inside. Wasn’t that lucky? Otherwise I’d have been in real trouble.’

‘There’s nothing lucky about you, Dan, and trouble barely covers it.’ She seethed, fists clenched, simmering with rage. ‘You stupid, stupid man. Look at you, trussed up like a bloody fairy, and all because you can’t be bothered to check you’ve got the right case in the morning. Too busy lying in bed leaving everything to the last minute. Why are you such a git, Dan? Why? You’re like my fourth bloody child; it’s pathetic. And why d’you have to have a drink every lunchtime, hm? Why is that such an imperative? Why do you find it completely and utterly impossible to walk past a hostelry without –’ Suddenly she froze. ‘Get in,’ she said through gritted teeth, lips frozen like a ventriloquist’s. ‘Mrs Mason’s watching. Get in Poppy’s car now.’

Dan’s head swivelled, then, needing no further prompting, he leaped in my car, where Clemmie and Archie sat in the back, mute for once, eyes like saucers. Mrs Mason, from Apple Tree Cottage, a wizened, tortoise-like woman, here to collect Mr Mason from the six twenty-five and ferry him back home for his liver and bacon, was indeed staring incredulously from her Polo window, her own eyes round like the children’s, but more the size of dinner plates. Jennie, looking fit to be tied, gave her a tight little smile then turned on her heel and stalked, with dignity, in the opposite direction, towards the station car park, and the other car.

‘Shit. Keys.’ Dan leaped out of my passenger seat and sprinted after her, pink sweater bunched in his hand to stop it falling. He waved the car keys. ‘Darling … darling, you’ll be wanting these –’

Jennie turned and thrust a bunch of keys in his face. ‘I’ve got the spare keys, Dan. I thought of that before I left the house. Now stop running around the station like a girl and get back in that car, now.’

‘Righto.’ He sprinted back to me. By now I was choking into the steering wheel as he got in beside me.

‘Thanks, Poppy.’ He sighed.

‘My pleasure,’ I gurgled.

‘These things happen, don’t they?’

‘They certainly seem to. To you, at least.’

‘Not my finest hour.’

‘Nope,’ I agreed cheerfully.

He leaned his head back wearily on the rest as we pulled away, pink legs akimbo. Then he cocked his head in my direction, his blue eyes resigned. ‘Divorce? D’you think? This time?’

‘Oh, undoubtedly, Dan,’ I assured him with a grin as we sped off home and the sodden fields flashed past. ‘This time, undoubtedly.’